Finbaran looked from one face to another, his forehead creasing between his heavy eyebrows. He wondered at what seemed to him to be an odd reaction to his good news. He decided to elaborate. "He is by no means out of danger." He hastily shifted his eyes from Glorfindel's suddenly inscrutable gaze, "But we have managed to repair the worst of the damage."
"Can we see him?" Elrohir asked, looking up hopefully.
"Shortly," Finbaran's gaze settled on Lyra, who returned his look with stony suspicion, "Lyra, Lord Elrond has requested your assistance, Elrohir. He will come and fetch you in a moment." He stepped to the side to let her pass through the doors. With a nervous look between the suspicious faces, he bowed his head, "My lord Glorfindel." He said as he side-stepped the Balrog Slayer and rushed off to wash his hands and change from his blood-spattered clothing.
Lyra fixed the Commander with wide eyes and silently gestured after the surgeon. With a nod to Hirgil, who stood silently beside the door, Glorfindel followed him.
There was a changing area for the healing staff connected to the surgical suite's back rooms. A large bathing chamber lined with lockers on one wall and a natural waterfall on the other. The space was tiled entirely in emerald green. It was there that Glorfindel sought out the Old Noldo. He found Finbaran stooped over a steaming tap, scrubbing his fingernails aggressively with a silver hog's hair brush. He was wearing only a knit towel, and for the first time, Glorfindel noticed the pale, fractal patterns of scars like tree branches across his thin back. The old surgeon stopped to splash his face with nearly scalding water.
"Master Tentaluntë," the golden warrior said from the door. Finbaran looked up into the polished silver mirror over the sink, blinking water out of his eyes.
"My lord Glorfindel," he said with a smile, "can I help you?" Glorfindel studied him as he picked up a hand towel and pressed it, still folded, to his face. Glorfindel had a sudden reckless urge to simply ask the question burning on his lips. He tried to feel for the surgeon's fëa, to detect whether there was an air of guilt around him. Was he a Kinslayer?
"I wanted to thank you," Glorfindel said instead, "for saving lord Elladan."
Finbaran looked confused, "It is my duty, Commander." He picked up the brush and went back to scrubbing his fingernails.
"I…" Glorfindel did his best to read him, "Lord Elrohir said that you were able to use some, experimental procedure?"
"You mean the transfusion?" he asked mildly, "Yes, it seems to have worked."
"Have you attempted this before, then?" Glorfindel folded his arms.
"Never successfully," He began to unwind his long braids with practiced motions. "I have tried it on the battlefield, but the patients always died. Do you know," He spoke as casually as if he was saying that his tomatoes had aphids. "I have long suspected that there is some quality of the blood that makes it toxic, but I have long suspected that close kindred might have different results." He smirked triumphantly, "and I was right!" He looked extremely pleased with himself, "You know, I once kept a mortal alive for ten years with a kidney I took from a cadaver! A waste of one of my last healing gems from home just to prove a point."
"I see," Glorfindel took a deep breath, clenching his jaw so that his look of horror would not show on his face, "Master Tentaluntë, where were you when Lord Elladan was attacked?"
The unspoken accusation hung in the humid air.
"I was performing my duties elsewhere in the infirmary." He answered evenly, closely focused on untying the plain black ribbon at the end of his braid.
"I see," Glorfindel paused, reluctant to use Lyra's name, "Did you hear the struggle, Master Tentaluntë?"
"No, my Lord, I'm afraid that I did not." His mahogany hair hung past his knees in lush waves as he released his braid. "Have we had any luck apprehending our rogue Sylvan?"
"A search is being conducted." Glorfindel could tell that the Master Healer was hiding something. Still, whatever it was lay locked away behind impenetrable iron gates, nine layers deep and steeped in ancient magic stamped clearly, for those who could sense such things, with the light of the star of the house of Fëanor. A deep uneasiness crept up on him from the very Earth. This was not a foe to be taken lightly.
"Have they searched the caverns?" Tentaluntë started on his other braid, soft coils slipping apart in his clever fingers.
"I have sent some of my men to see what they can find." The golden warrior answered.
"It is odd that he would choose to hide in the caverns, don't you think?" Tentaluntë shook out the last of his hair, and it fell like a gleaming chestnut cloak over his narrow shoulders. "I would not even bother looking down there if I were you." He raised his eyebrows in a way that made the hairs on the back of the Balrog Slayer's neck stand up.
"Quite odd," Glorfindel nodded, "Is there anything that they will find down there that I should know about?"
Finbaran grinned, "I hope not! If you have no more questions, my Lord," He glanced meaningfully at the showers, "It has been a long day."
"I apologize for interrupting." Glorfindel bowed, "Thank you, doctor." He said and stepped back into the outer hall. For a moment, he just stood there, clutching the handle of the locker room door. A thousand scenarios raced through his mind. How would he have gotten the glass from the guest room? He had been present to check over the visitors when they arrived, as was standard practice. Did he have time to get to the upstairs guest room, break the window, return to the infirmary, and stab Elladan? Certainly, the troubled Sylvan would be easy to pin the attack on. It was just believable enough. It was not the last time that evening that he wondered where Iston had got himself to.
Inside the locker room, Finbaran stepped under the waterfall. There was a fine grate where the water passed through into the caverns below. He was shaking with an ancient fear as he lay his body against the mossy stones. Looking behind him to make sure that he was alone. He popped his false eye out into his palm with a practiced motion. The light of the precious gem sparkled in shimmering starlight reflections from the surface of the bathing pool for a moment before his fingers hid the light. He turned his face back to let the water wash the crust of dried tears from his empty socket.
"Keep it secret, keep it safe," he echoed his lord Fëanor's last words to him as he had ten thousand times before, leaning into the icy water and letting it drown out the sound of his prayer as the river drummed down on his unbraided head, "ai Varda." He clutched the gem to his heart and sent his spirit flying across the sea to cast himself on the anvil of his lord. "Ai Navatar." He whispered, but he had no song, for his voice was hoarse from hours of desperate singing. There was a part of him that would have, then and there, cast the gem into the water and let himself be free of it. But as always, when he contemplated such a reckless action, he found himself slipping it back into place here the star-bright gem had been hidden since before the rising of the sun or moon.
"Keep it secret. Keep it safe." he rubbed his eye and popped it back into place.
.
Far below them, a dwarf led a company of five elven warriors down a long and winding stair into utter darkness. They had found some disruption of the dust at the top of the stairs, as if footprints had been hastily swept away. The stairway was ancient and crumbling. It looked to be from the earliest inhabitation of the valley an age ago.
They carried an elvish lamp, which cast the contoured walls into strange and jagged shadows.
"This is good stone." The Dwarf declared, slapping the damp cave wall affectionately. The stairs that they followed opened into a crevasse on their left, from which a cool breeze blew to play in their hair. "When was your last earthquake?" he asked casually.
"Not in a yen!" Turogar said from behind him, "Why do you ask?" the elf implored.
But Fundin only grunted evasively, pretending that he did not struggle to manage the stairs made for legs much longer than his. After some time, the stairs wound to the bottom of the crevasse. Fundin looked one way and then the other. He put one hand on the cavern wall. Gazing upwards, he could see the light from the cold storage room glimmering far away.
"This way." The dwarf declared after a moment and went left, back down the passage.
"Why this way?" Turogar asked, feeling the need to whisper and step softly.
"Footprints, master elf." He gestured to the ground before them, where footprints wound off into the dark. In fact, it looked as if someone had been walking this way regularly. Turogar looked down at the Dwarf, and his eyes gleamed in the lamplight.
"Nevertheless, I will send three of our men down the other branch of the cavern. This may be a foe who can disguise his tracks."
"As ye will," muttered Fundin, sounding unimpressed. The remaining warrior followed the captain and the dwarf into the gloom. Their lamp cast a pale circle on the ground. As they moved between the walls of curving stone, they began to hear the sound of rushing water. For here, the waters that ran through the baths in the healing halls far above passed on down into these caverns and poured out down the valley of Imladris.
So they came, after a while, to the edge of a foaming curl of white water that sprayed and misted its way through the broken rocks.
"This looks like the end of the path," Turogar squinted into the darkness.
But the dwarf held up one sturdy hand, shaking his head in deep thought.
"There's a door here." He muttered, then, turning to the elf captain, said, "Give me your helmet."
"Excuse me?" Turogar frowned.
"It's a water lock." Fundin explained as if it was obvious, "I need something that I can fill with water."
The other soldier who had followed them removed their helmet and handed it to the dwarf with a look of incredulity.
"I thank ye…" Fundin bowed, waiting for a name.
"Nimril." She answered.
Fundin nodded once before he stooped down to the angry water and filled his makeshift vessel. He threw the water in a delicate arch across what looked to be an unremarkable stretch of rock. Where the water touched the stone, lines of silver fire as bright as starlight glimmered to life, they raced across the rockface, forming a labyrinth of shifting gossamer. Eventually, the design resolved into what was unmistakably eight feet high in a mighty arch, the seal of the Gwaith-í-Mirdain. They had, evidently, found some kind of door, but this was a lock beyond his skill to pick. This was a lock that required a wizard.
"I wonder," said the Dwarf, "if lord Elrond knows about this?"
.
Outside of the house, the little lamps of scouting parties spread out through the sparse pine forests on the valley slopes of Imladris. It was nearing the third watch of the night and no one had seen the faintest sign of their lost sylvan.
Erestor watched the flickering elf lights floating away into the winter forests. A sudden pang of love for the elder peredhil twin cut through him. It was such a senseless attack on one so talented and vital. His chest ached when he thought of the tragedy it would be to lose him. One expected it on the battlefield when they would ride out to hunt the servants of the enemy, but this was dishonorable even for the servants of Morgoth. Erestor had a special connection with the focused, intelligent elder twin, forged through years of strict tutelage. A mixture of rage and sadness washed over him when he thought of their quarry, twisted beyond reason by the whispers of the enemy. He was tortured out of his freedom, ripped from his mind as a final violation.
Erestor navigated through a snow-dusted drift of autumn leaves, his breath hung in the air, and the cloak he had thrown on before joining the search party snapped in the wind. Two paths ran above each other up the wooded side of the valley, and he cut between them as best as he could. He mused over the futility of hunting down an experienced Sylvan scout in the forest. Erestor was about to give up on this area when he spotted a place where the leaves had a slightly different texture.
He stepped up to the prone form, half buried in leaves. Stooping down, Erestor sighed, turning the body and finding it ice cold and stiff. Iston was dead.