Three Black Islands by Idrils Scribe  

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4. Descent

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"Many of the Noldor and the Sindar they took captive and led to Angband, and made them thralls, forcing them to use their skill and their knowledge in the service of Morgoth."

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 18, Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin

Angband. The Hells of Iron. Impregnable stronghold and mighty prison. Forge, mine and armoury. Capital of the Dark Lord’s dominion. The source of his black essence that taints Arda’s very atoms.

A pale sliver of daylight pours into the entrance hall, greyly illuminating an age of darkness. The vast carven arches of the roof stretch away like ribs of a giant carcass until they fade beyond the light’s reach. The hall’s far end remains dark as the Void.

Telperinquar and Annatar pull their sledges through the gate, but the metal runners screech against the flagstones, shattering the tomb-like silence. The sound echoes through the hall in eerie reverberations. At once Telperinquar halts his sledge. Every animal instinct he possesses screams that a stillness so profound should not be broken.

He scolds himself for such irrationality - this vast subterranean labyrinth has lain abandoned since the departing Host of the Valar sealed the entrance. And yet, he cannot bring himself to make even the slightest noise, lest something hear it.

Annatar seems unconcerned. Without a word he leaves his own sledge behind beside Telperinquar’s and wanders away from the wedge of light falling through the entrance. He stares up at the distant shadows of the roof with a strange expression on his face.

Dark shapes shift and waver up there. Telperinquar needs a moment to grasp that he is looking at the ragged remains of banners, bearing Morgoth’s device of sable unblazoned.

The sight seems to fascinate Annatar beyond any practical consideration. He walks off at a brisk pace, following the line of banners towards the dark depths of the hall, all thought of supplies or even lamps cast from his mind. 

Telperinquar dares not call out, and so he quickly sprints after him and taps his shoulder. Annatar wheels, his expression vacant like a man woken from a daze of memory or dream.

“The banners remain,” Annatar  mutters as if to himself. ”What shall we find on the lower levels, I wonder?” His strange eyes flame with eagerness, golden and red.

“I need a lamp to see by,” Telperinquar reminds him, pointing at the sledges in the daylight by the gate. He is well used to the long dark of Khazad-dûm’s mineshafts, but standing lampless in Angband’s age-old darkness makes him uneasy.

“Of course,” Annatar smiles. “Apologies.”

The sight brings Telperinquar some small, familiar relief. How often has his Maïarin friend made a similar apology for forgetting the needs of Telperinquar’s incarnate state, over the long years they have worked together?

Together they return to the sledges, and in silent accord they choose which provisions they must leave, and which will fit into their rucksacks. Victuals, lamps both crystal and oil-fed, a plentiful supply of ink and notebooks, and several large bags in which to carry away any documents or artefacts.

Telperinquar girds on his sword. He wishes he had brought armour, to have more than a fur coat between himself and an ambush in the dark. Another wholly irrational thought in a place that has stood empty for a thousand years, but still he cannot shake it. It irks him - a man of science should master his baser instincts.

At last they hide the sledges in a nook behind some slabs of fallen masonry and continue on foot, their footsteps echoing in the unfathomed silence.

Outside the Curse’s fires raged hot enough to melt the very bedrock. In here the mountain overhead provided shelter from the heat and the blast.

They walk side by side, over polished flagstones of titanic size scattered with the decaying debris of ancient battle. This very hall is where Morgoth’s legions took their last desperate stand against the besieging Host of the West. Barricades have been erected across the vast space, their wood now slowly pulverizing into dust.

Behind the blockades the bones of fallen defenders still lie. Angband has become a vast and silent tomb. Thousands of Orc skulls stare with empty sockets from helmets rusted to red crumble. Amidst the slain slave-soldiers lie their officers, greater and more dreadful things. Boldogs, werewolves, vampires of various shapes with skeletal wings. The spiny arches of a dragon’s ribcage form a bony tunnel through which a man might walk, if he could bear to step through those fanged jaws that gape open in their dying scream.

Where the daylight fails and twilight deepens, Telperinquar brings out his Fëanorian lantern. Its beam of white-blue radiance spears through the darkness. The light reveals a multitude of dark doorways pockmarking the far wall, like a fly-bitten corpse or some deep-sea creature with many eyes, lying in wait.

Now Telperinquar takes from the inner pocket of his parka his most precious asset. He carried this book on his body the entire journey, lest it be lost with a pack fallen off a sledge. The slim, leather-bound volume was assembled an Age ago.

When Angband fell, a multitude of Elf-prisoners staggered into the light.  With the inside knowledge these broken souls revealed, many hidden floors were charted and concealed cells opened. That lore of Angband’s layout has been sketched in this booklet. All of the Mírdain’s considerable skill at spycraft has been spent to secretly acquire it.

Telperinquar opens it onto the first sketched floorplan. “The Great Forge would be situated lower, near the coal deposits. Beneath the central peak probably, given that the mountain was constantly belching smoke.” He points at one of the doorways, giving into a rough-hewn corridor that runs steadily down.

“What we seek would not be in the Great Forge,” Annatar says in a tone of absolute certainty.

Telperinquar glances aside at him. “Why not?”

Annatar turns to the nearest Orc skeleton, and prods the tarnished remains of its halberd with the tip of his boot. The thing crumbles into rust-powder at the mere touch.

“In the Great Forge, slave-smiths churned out standard-issue blades for the rank and file. Morgoth must have possessed a more private location for his own experiments.”

How can he be so sure?

A dark clump of doubt gathers in Telperinquar’s stomach. Annatar has never accounted for his whereabouts during the War of the Jewels.

What if-

No. Annatar has been Telperinquar’s boon companion in the laboratory for two long-years. So many hours spent close together - achingly, longingly close. Telperinquar never saw any sign that Annatar might be something other than the well-meaning teacher he claims to be.

No sign at all - unless he missed something?

“How do you know this?” he asks, afraid of the answer.

“Morgoth suffered no witnesses.” Annatar shrugs, seemingly unaware of Telperinquar’s dark doubts. “Had he been performing his cutting-edge research in front of his captives, those sly Noldorin smiths would have gleaned his secrets long ago. Every last equation would sit catalogued in the library of Ost-in-Edhil, and you and I would have no need to search this place.”

Logical and eminently wise, as always. Telperinquar is annoyed at not having thought of it himself.

He rifles through the pages analysing the sketches, his eyes glued to the book. “A private laboratory then, where could design his prototypes away from prying eyes. But not too far out of the way - even he would need fuel and ventilation.”

Annatar looks at the sketches over Telperinquar’s shoulder and taps his finger against the page. “These must be the ventilation shafts.”

He is right. The shafts do seem to run through every single sub-layer into the very depths of the fortress.

Telperinquar passes Annatar the booklet. Annatar leafs through it with quick, energetic motions, his eyes alight with keenness.

“Not here,” Annatar skims and flips several pages, each one containing the floorplan for a single level, ever deeper down.

What hopes Telperinquar had of a short sojourn in Angband are quenched. What they seek lies deep in the very bowels of this lightless labyrinth. Already, the weight of the mountain above seems to press down upon them, and they must go deeper still. Much deeper.

At last Annatar points at the very last page, now positively excited. “This is the only possible location. Morgoth bored his private chambers down into the bedrock, near the Nethermost Hall.”

Telperinquar stares at the simple line-sketch made in charcoal. Annatar is a fine architect indeed, if he can glean all that from a drawing so coarse. These downmost floorplans show little detail. Few captives dragged to the deepest layers ever lived to tell the tale.

One did.

Maitimo survived the Nethermost Hell, but whatever befell him there drove him mad. He clawed back a semblance of sanity by burying the memories deep. He never spoke of Angband. Whatever Maitimo knew of Morgoth’s deepest halls, he took with him into Mandos.

Now Telperinquar will walk in his uncle’s footsteps. He shall settle that old score, and carry away Morgoth’s secrets as weregild for the House of Fëanáro.

“To the Nethermost Hall,” Telperinquar whispers, more to spur himself than for Annatar. He points first at the sketch, then at the tallest portal beneath an arch wide enough for ten orcs to march abreast. “That seems to be the main thoroughfare.”

Annatar smiles, and follows.

The portal gives out onto a stairway decorated with a frieze of crawling Elf-prisoners. The descent itself is not difficult. The great stairway is perfectly sculpted, each step even and symmetrical.

Once they lose the faint grey glow of daylight in the entrance hall, the darkness becomes a living, breathing thing with a will of its own. Like some great gelatinous sea-monster it retreats before the moving globe of lantern light and expands again to fill the space behind them.

The horror is all the greater for what the leaping light reveals.

Telperinquar’s lantern shows bas-reliefs and frescoes in the styles of Doriath and Gondolin. Every scene is a masterpiece worthy of an Elven king’s palace.

The Lamps of the Valar cast down, their mighty pillars broken.

The Darkening of Valinor.

The Two Trees destroyed and trampled into ashes.

A journey down to the Nethermost Hall is a descent into Morgoth’s triumph, and each image is more horrible than the last.

Who made these dreadful depictions? What sculptor was forced to chisel such horrors?  By what foul coercion Morgoth did Morgoth extract this degree of skill from his Elvish captives? Telperinquar is a craftsman himself, and he fears to imagine what levers would be needed to force one to such work.

The next scene is a well-laid mosaic of semiprecious stone. Telperinquar stops and stands stricken.

Finwë lies dead before Morgoth’s feet, his crushed skull a mess of blood and brain.

The gore is not the worst of it. No. What truly sickens Telperiquar to the point of nausea, is the background.

The great hall of Formenos is faithfully reproduced, from the gem-laden chandelier down to the red-and-golden star pattern of the tiles.

Whoever made this mosaic knew Formenos well, and none but Fëanáro’s inner circle were ever welcome there. Telperinquar must have known them - one of Maitimo’s luckless companions, perhaps. They suffered and slaved in these dungeons, forced to create this monstrous image of Finwë’s murder.

“Námo rest you,” Telperinquar mutters, and walks on.

Side tunnels branch off at regular intervals, gaping holes of absolute blackness. Something scurries away into a side passage as the lamplight passes over it. Telperinquar slows his pace to look, but in the tunnel beyond nothing stirs. He speeds onward, lest some horror leap into the light.

On the walls the Dark Hunter reaps his grisly harvest by the shores of Cuiviénen. Trains of chained Elf-prisoners are driven into Utumno by the whips of Balrogs.

Ahead on the stairs below pale shapes seem to be moving at the edge of sight. Perhaps his eyes, those limited instruments of the flesh, are fooling him with images born of his terror.

They cross another side tunnel. Telperinquar walks past, then quickly turns on his heel and  raises his lamp. He catches something darting across the main stairs. A pale streak, its shape vaguely humanoid, but moving too fast to be properly seen.

“Something is following us.”

Annatar shrugs. “The Curse of the Valar failed to kill all of Angband’s denizens. The offspring must still roam these halls.”  He turns aside to face Telperinquar. “Do you wish to turn back?”

Telperinquar straightens, and rests his hand on the pommel of his sword. The familiar shape is comforting against his palm. “Let it not be said that Fëanáro’s grandson crossed Morgoth’s threshold, but dared not go within.”

The glow of fierce approval on Annatar’s face warms Telperinquar like a draught of wine. Side by side they go on, step after step descending into darkness.

The friezes grow more dreadful still. Captive Elves changed and twisted by slow and horrible stages into the ruined state of Orcs. Every image a descent into further mutilation.

Telperinquar shudders. The loremasters have always known this, but to be faced with the methods by which the horror was achieved drives home the bleak reality.

They are us.

The pale creatures grow bolder. Slender and skeletal, they move unnaturally fast, almost insect-like.Their skittering sounds now ring from every side tunnel, and they dare ever closer to the moving circle of light. Before and behind they lurk on the edge of sight, writhing white shapes whose nature he cannot quite make out.

“They are hungry,” Annatar observes.

Terror briefly takes Telperinquar. Light alone keeps the monsters at bay. His Fëanorian lantern has served him faithfully for many years, but the pitiless decay of Middle-earth wears even the finest Valinórean crafts. Crystals have been known to wink out into sudden darkness. If his lantern should break he will have no time to grab a spare. But a single heartbeat of darkness, and the hungry things will fall upon them.

He cannot bear the thought. From his pack he takes a spare lantern and spears a second beam of blue light into the darkness ahead.

The shrieking thing caught within the light should not exist. Angband has sat abandoned for a mere thousand years. Evolution does not act that fast.

And yet… he cannot tell whether this being was once Elf or Orc, but like a cave fish its skin has become white and transparent, showing blue veins and muscles beneath. In its skeletal face the eye sockets are mere skin-covered dimples. The mouth is fanged. The jaw works in chewing motions, drooling with hunger.

The ears are pointed.

For an instant Telperinquar stands paralyzed by the sight of this creature whose very existence violates Eru’s creation.

Then years of military training under Maitimo return to him. With a hiss like tearing silk he draws his sword from the sheath, and raises high the lantern. Blue steel sparks in the light. These things shall learn that Fëanorian flesh is paid dearly. 

Annatar draws no weapon. He speaks a Valarin command in a tone so deep that Telperinquar feels the resonance in his bones. At once the shadows seem to swallow Him in a deeper darkness. Perhaps the light plays tricks with Telperinquar’s sight, but for an instant a flash of fire lights up Annatar's eyes.

The pale things retreat at once. With a rush of chittering moans they scurry away into the darkness.

Silence descends once more.

“What was that?” Telperinquar gasps.

“A pack of cave-adapted humanoids, it would appear.” Annatar answers dryly.

“How-”

“Radiation speeds the rate of genetic mutation. It bred many new variants here, I imagine. The fittest survived.”

Were these things once Orcs, or surviving Elf-prisoners forgotten in some hidden cell or mineshaft, left to breed and slowly degenerate into this mutilated state? Or perhaps both? Telperinquar shudders.

Then a realisation strikes him. “The light is not what kept them at bay - they have no eyes to see it.” Telperinquar whips around to face Annatar. “You did, Annatar! How come they obey you?”

“They would fear any of the Ainur.” Annatar says dismissively, as if such obedience were self-evident. “Come now. Let us go on.”

Telperinquar keeps only a single lamp, but he stays closer to Annatar.

Lower still they descend into hell. Telperinquar loses track of time. Have they been walking down these stairs for hours, or have days gone by? They must be deep in the earth, judging by the rising temperature. He halts them a moment to remove his fur parka and stow it in his pack. 

Some time later they come upon the corpse of an eyeless cave-dweller. Desiccated, but still showing the bite mark that killed it. A maw with spiralling teeth has bored a perfectly round tunnel into the creature’s torso and sucked it dry.

“What did this?” Telperinquar asks, his mind aflame with horrific possibilities.

“Old and strange things are said to have dwelled in the lowest levels,” Annatar says. “It seems they, too, have survived, and come up to feed.”

Telperinquar clasps his sword-hilt. Whatever blood-sucking horror may slither through these tunnels, it will taste cold steel before the end.

“Fear not, my brave friend.” Annatar smiles again. “No power here is greater than mine.”

They leave the mummified corpse behind.

A ways further into the depths, Telperinquar stops with a moan and stares at the wall.

A remarkably well preserved fresco in bright paints shows a red-haired Elf knight captured and carried to Angband in triumph by a company of Balrogs. Their glowing eyes are inlaid rubies.

A cold fist of dread closes around Telperinqar's heart as he runs ahead to the next panel.

Maitimo, bound before Morgoth’s throne.

Telperinquar stares at the fresco, transfixed. His mind cannot contain the horror of what his eyes are seeing.

His beloved uncle Maitimo, the High King of the Noldor, stripped and flogged before a jeering crowd of Orcs and fouler beasts. Maitimo’s blood drips onto the stained ruin of his own starred banner spread on the floor beneath. His face is a mask of agony.

Annatar studies the painting with the detached curiosity of one unfamiliar with physical pain. “He was your kinsman,” he says pensively, as if this had not occurred to him before.

“My uncle, and my liege-lord.” Telperinquar struggles to keep his voice even and calm.

“Did you know him well?” Annatar will not let go of the subject, it seems.

“I lived in his household as a youth.” Telperinquar hesitates, then adds, “he was like a father to me when my own father … was not.¹”

“Is that so?” Annatar seems to think this family tale a fascinating revelation.

“Maitimo taught me law and rhetoric. To this day I remember his teaching every time I address my council.” Telperinquar hates to taint the memory of their days together by speaking of them here, before this dreadful painting.

His eye falls once more on Maitimo’s bleeding back beneath the knout, the welts running all down his body.

“He was a changed man after Angband.” Telperinquar has no words to describe the sorrow of Maitimo’s transformation. Maitimo’s once-handsome face was a web of scars. He never spoke of what was done to him, but behind his eyes roared an unquenchable fire born of pain.

“I heard that the High King of the Noldor proudly defied Morgoth’s will,” Annatar seems unaware that he is touching a painful subject, “and thereby suffered much torment and humiliation.” 

Telperinquar watches Fëanáro’s painted banner on the floor. The eight-pointed star trod on by Orcs and spattered in Maitimo’s blood.

Hot anger roars through his veins at the pride of the Noldor laid so low.

“Curse the Black Foe!” He yanks his knife from the sheath and hacks at the painted Maitimo. Flakes of lime plaster rain down. For good measure he crushes them under his feet so only coloured crumbles remain.

Annatar watches him in silence, until at last both Maitimo and his banner have been erased into a shapeless crater. Telperinquar stands panting, knife in hand.

“I am sorry,” Annatar seems taken aback by Telperinquar’s anger. “I was too forward with my questions.”

“It is not your fault,” Telperinquar mutters. He turns his face away as he sheathes his knife and pats the plaster dust from his sleeves. The fire of his rage is cooling, and he begins to doubt the wisdom of his outburst.

“You shall prove Maitimo’s equal I think, both in courage and doughty strength,” Annatar smiles. “I hope one day to witness that.”

Telperinquar returns the smile, relieved that Annatar has not taken offence. “I hope so too, Annatar.”

For how this happened, see "The Art of Speech Through Smithcraft." ^{[ ▲ ]}