Curufinwë Atarinkë Fëanorion regarded his older brother with distaste from his stolen throne; he held a scepter, made by his own hand, adorned with a large purple gem. Celegorm was big and blonde and as disappointing in death as he had been in life. His once fair features were marred by a terrible blackened burn that exposed the shining bone of one eye socket. His red and golden armor was dented and scored from the battle that had taken his life many yeni before.

"I suppose that it would be unrealistic to expect your aim to have improved, Tyelkormo." Curufin sneered, weaponizing the familiarity of his nickname, "but I had hoped that your wits would remain intact." A black bird settled on the back of the throne and croaked indignantly.

"He escaped. He had help."

"Oh, he escaped? Because you had no help whatsoever." They were in the once mighty throne room of Mandos. The architecture of gleaming black marble had been split in half by a great crack which began as narrow as a fingernail, and fracturing the stone of the dais and the throne which the elf occupied in two, it spread out in a horror of absence into a deep fissure that divided the architecture like a broken boulder and opened into a rift between his feet that plummeted to unseen depths. A cold wind poured out of the darkness. It was into that void that the overthrown Doomlord had vanished. It was from that darkness that he would pull his father before he shared with him the gift of death.

"Olorin got to him before us." Celegorm scowled, "he has taken that absurd form and will not release it or leave the child's side. He led him right into the arms of the accursed flower knights and my… men." He looked disgusted, "were struck down before he could be apprehended. Perhaps if I had better talent available."

"Our brother has already stated his position on the subject." Curufin slapped his palm with his scepter, admiring the craftsmanship. It bore the likeness of a wolf's skull with the stone clasped in its teeth.

"I was not speaking of Maitimo. There are still levels of this fortress which have not been explored."

Curufin laughed mirthlessly, "We are searching the lower halls even now. You will know when I find them," he turned to look at his bird, stroking its silky feathers, "and so will our enemies."

…

Glorfindel watched the boy chewing eagerly on his third wafer of the High Queen's lembas. Eldarion had been bandaged, fed and dressed in a too-large tunic from what his company had available on the road back to High Queen Galadriel's camp. He had adjusted the buckles on his own gilded baldric to house the stolen blade noting that the boy seemed to favor his left hand.

They waited out the noonday heat beneath a spreading oak tree. Riele curled around the boy, eagerly sniffing for fallen crumbs in his lap, more like a very large dog than a horse. Eldarion smiled and laughed at the creature's antics, brushing back his dark hair, which was cut brutally short in a mannish fashion.

Glorfindel leaned forward, took a slow breath and asked the burning question. "Eldarion, how came you here?" He regarded the child with veiled worry in his tree lit eyes as if a mortal boy appearing in the forests of Lorien as Valinor descended into violence was not an augur of doom.

Eldarion shrugged, "a wizard showed me."

"A wizard?" he watched Eldarion pat Riele's neck, stuffing the last lembas wafer into his mouth.

"His name is Allatar," he said through his full mouth, accepting a skin of honey wine to wash it down. "He taught me lots of things. He's a healer. My…" He looked up at the elf and deemed him trustworthy. Glorfindel saw him eyeing the rations bag and handed him a fourth package of waybread. He related the whole story, and Glorfindel watched with rapt attention. A crease appeared between his eyebrows when he described the explosion in the marketplace, and it deepened when he described his father's injuries and Elladan's desperate attempts to save him. The atmosphere of despair in the city as he watched his mother begin to fade from grief and his desperate bid to save his father. Glorfindel's face was an open mask of quiet horror as he realized that Eldarion had been at the center of all that had become of his homeland. It was all he could do not to gather the child into his arms but the boy had a look of fey determination that would not permit the vulnerability of comfort until his task was completed in either victory or grief.

"Affírista," he said when the prince had finished his story, "is what the Noldor call him. He is a servant of the Doomlord who was sent to Endor with the other Istari and I."

"You know him?" Eldarion sat up eagerly.

"You know that I have passed through the halls of Mandos myself?" Glorfindel said seriously.

"Wow!" Eldarion said before he could check himself, "I mean, sorry…" he looked down in panicked embarrassment, but Glorfindel had thrown his head back in musical laughter and rolled back onto his elbow, kicking his long legs out into the grass. The dappled light sparkled off his armor as he peered thoughtfully up into the branches of the tree.

"He is a great healer. It is his song to protect the balance between life and death. He would welcome those who were called to the halls of Mandos and gently find them rest and healing. When he sailed into the East, it was his assignment to ensure that the Doomlord's justice was meted out in Endor, but he vanished into the East many long yeni ago, and I, and many others, thought that was the last of him. From what I understand, he came to have philosophical differences with the Valar."

Eldarion picked one of the white flowers that grew in the long grass and twirled it around between his fingers, "where are they?" he asked after a moment.

Glorfindel shifted, watching him thoughtfully. "The Valar?"

"I…" Eldarion looked around as if Yavanna Kementari would step from behind the tree, "I thought they lived here?"

Glorfindel sighed and opened his mouth as if he would say something but decided against it, "I may not be the one to answer that question."

"Where have they gone?" Eldarion pressed, reminding him of a very young Estel. A bird twittered in the branches of the tree, and the wind made dancing patterns across the grass.

"We don't know," Glorfindel said, feeling compelled to honesty by this brave young man with his father's sword and a sleeping unicorn's head in his lap.

"But, all the stories," Eldarion shook his head.

Glorfindel nodded in acquiescence, "There was a time when they walked among us, real as flesh…" he looked out to where the black clouds of corruption hung in the Western sky, searching for words, "We were young, innocent, and we could hear their songs. We think ourselves everlasting. We think that this land cannot change, but as more of us return with the shadows of war and grief upon our hearts, we return with greed and prejudice and all the luggage of Yeni of exile and pain, we have carried the memory of sorrow into the unfading lands and… we have not seen the Valar in millennia."

"What!" Eldarion choked on a mouthful of lembas and honey wine, startling Riele, who huffed in annoyance and moved herself to flop like a carcass into the long grass.

"Valinor was ready to fall before any of this came to pass." He admitted sadly, watching the unicorn as if she should have an opinion on the matter, "As the Valar faded from our presence, we tried to call them back. Some have turned to superstition and ritual where once we had friendship and song. There was a time when The Kindler would step down from her heavenly throne to dance with us in the starlight. The lady Nerdanel has made a statue of her, very tall and dark and beautiful as the night, in the great temple of Tirion. Now we sing songs to the statue and the mosaic dome of stars."

"But I thought that things weren't supposed to change here?"

Glorfindel raised his eyebrows, "supposed to? Eldarion, the change was in us, not the land. Remember that we are not native to these shores, and our minds are strange to the Valar who did not create us. We are as foreign to them as they are to us."

Eldarion had no answer for this. He had always assumed that someone was in charge of it all, but he suddenly felt adrift in an uncertain world of fragile powers.

"Atarincë used my blood to dethrone Namo." He sat up with a resolved certainty on his face, brushing crumbs from his tunic and clutching the sheath of the sword at his hip like a lifeline.

"this is all my fault. I have to kill him."

Glorfindel's face split into an indulgent smile, "he is already dead. How will you do that?" Eldarion scowled at the elf fiercely. He had not thought of that.

"The eyes of Mandos, they are called," Glorfindel explained, "these accursed stones, there are two of them, Eldarion.

…

Elrond opened his eyes after a long silence. He smelled the dank atmosphere of decay and looked down at the sleeping mortal. His healing lullabies had coaxed the man to sleep, and now he lay stretched out on the cold stones with Elrond's tattered cloak under his head. His hands were still bound in sculptural Noldorin metalwork where they lay on his stomach; wrists chaffed pink where he had fought against his captors. Elrond had struggled with the accursed lock for a moment, but Curufin the Crafty had lost none of his skill as a smith, and they seemed inescapable with the tools he had available. The man's leg was bound with improvised bandages where the claws of Curufin's servants had broken the skin and he had carefully raised the limb while he sang gentle songs of mending into the sinews.

He reached out in his mind to his wife, who stood like a beacon across the gulf of violence that was the territory occupied by these dark forces. He had left her in a refugee camp with her mother, a kiss and a promise to return that he was not sure he would fulfill. The sudden rush of foresight that had driven him down this desperate road had proven painfully accurate, as was so often the case. He did not easily dwell upon what may have been had he not been there.

Elrond had ridden to the front with the other Noldorin commanders, reembodied and retired kings who had hastily dusted off their armor to ride to the muster of the newly allied elvish kindreds. As the elvish forces pushed west towards the great darkness that blotted out the sunset, the true extent of the destruction had become apparent. Glorfindel had volunteered for the dangerous task of infiltration. Still, it was not something he could order another to do, and it had been his vision that the child he had fostered and raised in his own household would be left to the torments of the enemy. No, he was the only one who could go, and if he succeeded, he prayed that the Doomlord would judge him worthy to be returned to his family.

It had been nearly an hour since Estel had been returned, bloodied and unable to stand, and Maedhros had been taken away. He departed stoically amongst a company of clattering skeletons with purple lights in their eyes. Hearing a sound from the corridor, Elrond sat up, no elf would make so much noise, and the scent of decay was notably absent.

A pale face peered through the bars, illuminated by torchlight, a human face.

"Who goes there," Elrond whispered to the slinking form as the face receded into the shadows.

"You are not the one I seek," said a rough voice as he slunk away.

"Wait," Elrond stood and went to the door, "who are you?" the footsteps stopped, and he squinted to see the shadowy figure.

"My name is Damrod," he said, "I was murdered."

"Damrod, that's a Gondorian name," he did not respond immediately, "who do you seek?"

"She told me to look for locked doors." He crept forward, and Elrond could see that the man wore the livery of the Minas Anor citadel officials. His embroidered tunic was stained with a great gush of blood from the open wound in his throat.

"She?"

Damrod eyed him suspiciously, "You're an elf?"

"Damrod?" Aragorn had awoken and had rolled to look towards the voice. "My Lord!" he ran forward, grabbing the bars.

"Damrod, how came you here?" He stood unsteadily with help from his father and limped towards the door, thankful that he could walk, if not without pain.

"I was slain by the Wizard Pallando." Aragorn took one of his hands through the bars, a great swell of anger and pity rising within him, "I… I tried, I tried warning the Prince," he noticed the shackles on his king's wrists, "what have they done to you?" he said in horror, taking in his lord's battered face.

"Damrod, how did you get here?"

"There was a woman. She had her face covered. She sent me to find anyone who had not been released. She thinks we, she thinks that there may be enough of us to… to stage a rebellion."

"Can you help us escape?" he urged, "Prince Eldarion is in terrible danger. We have to get out of here."

"Yes, sir. I… I think so." He stammered, looking around, "She taught me a song of unlocking." He held his king's shackled wrists in his hands through the bars like a pair of turtle doves. He tried to sing a few lines of badly accented Quenya, but the knife that had slashed his throat made his voice harsh and he cringed in pain as he spoke.

"Is that?" Elrond smirked in recognition of the music, "Is that the Lament for Miriel Therinde?" He raised his voice to meet the mortal's and as he finished the first few measures, the locks clicked open, and the elegant shackles fell away.

"Can you get the door open?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes, sir!" he produced a black key shaped like a small, bony hand. Articulated fingers flexed and opened of their own accord, ready to shape themselves to the locking mechanism. "it's

ah… a skeleton key." He shrugged, and Aragorn rolled his eyes with a smile of relief and wonder.

"Quiet now." He warned as he watched as his chamberlain struggled with the lock and finally, mercifully, the door opened.

The two prisoners stepped cautiously into the hall. All was quiet outside.

Aragorn grabbed the wall as his leg protested, and he longed for a weapon more effective than the gaudy manacles he slipped around his belt, just in case. "The patrol will be back soon," Damrod closed the door behind them to minimize suspicion, "this way."

The three crept down the corridor in single file, following the torchlight. There were endless rows of cells on either side and now and again, a dark passageway would lead off in another direction. Damrod, it seemed, had attempted to memorize his path. He whispered to himself, "Left, left, right, left, right, left," and so on as they went, pausing occasionally to remember the way he had come.

"Where are we going?" Elrond asked the third time this had happened. "To a secret place," Damrod answered, "the Dead Queen awaits us."

"How many prisoners were kept here?" Aragorn asked his father as they passed another intersection leading to endless corridors of open doors.

"Nobody knows," Elrond admitted, "even the reimbodied know little outside of their personal experience. Those who return call this a place of comfort and healing, and perhaps to them it was."

"Comfort?" Aragorn looked into a cell where the remains of chains hung from the walls with dark stains on the stone beneath them. "I wonder about those who do not return."

"Quiet," Elrond ordered, suddenly alert. The two mortals turned to look at him. "Something is coming, something big." A moment later, they could hear it, too, a shuffling and stamping noise coming from behind them and a terrible reek of fetid decay.

"Cave troll." Aragorn looked at his father, wishing for his sword.

"No…" Elrond was pale as he recognized the sound from an ancient memory, "That is a dragon." before he could protest Elrond had pulled one of Aragorn's arms over his shoulders, and the three of them turned into a black passage that opened on his left at a sprint.

They heard the monster sniff as it turned the corner behind them. It made a great, wet, slavering sound as it detected the smell of fresh blood in the air. It stamped a great clawed foot and undulated its, serpentine body with a throaty clicking noise as it wound itself around the corner.

They reached another intersection, but the beast had caught their scent and it gave a terrible bellow as its prey slipped away. The corridor was filled with brilliant purple flames behind

them. As they turned another corner and then another, Aragorn's injured leg gave out, and he stumbled.

"Just keep going, stay on your feet." He felt his father catch him tight around the waist.

"Down here!" Damrod called, leading them to a spiral stairway too narrow for the beast that pursued them. They had descended a few turns of the stairs when a great sound of rage and a blast of heat came from above them, and the ground shook.

"Keep going," Elrond urged his son as he felt Aragorn fall again and slip down a few stairs. There was another blow as if the monster was throwing his whole strength into the stone.

There was a sound of falling rocks above them, and they stumbled on the worn stairs, but they did not wait to see if he would bring down the whole stairwell on their heads. They climbed down into the bones of the earth, and finally, after many turns of the tight corkscrew, they emerged into an echoing chamber as black as night.

"Did we lose it?" Damrod leaned on his knees, gasping.

"I believe so." Elrond's voice came from somewhere to his left, where he had let Aragorn slide to the ground. The air was dense with the smell of oil and the weight of long silence, which seemed to drink the echoes of their voices.

"Alas, we are unarmed." He gasped as he cradled his knee, squinting into the darkness. "You would face that monster with a sword, my liege?" Damrod laughed.

"Why just a sword?" Aragorn smiled, recognizing what he was seeing emerge from the dark, "I have an army!"

Damrod stood. The darkness had begun to lift, gleaming stones set in the distant ceiling, kindling to life like an ocean of stars above them. In the soft light, they saw that the room was full of figures. They were chest high to a tall man, stocky and carved in perfect verisimilitude from the black basalt of bedrock. They stood in rank upon rank, silent and still as far as the eye could see.

"Dwarves." He whispered.