The Day Transcending Night by StarSpray  

Four

“This is a terrible idea.”

“I’ve asked you a dozen times if you have a better one.”

“I don’t, but I also think trying to recreate Tol-en-Gaurhoth is not going to go how we think it will.”

“We’re not recreating Tol-en-Gaurhoth.” Eluréd glared at Elurín. “If anything, we’re recreating Angband.” Between the two of them it was usually Elurín who struggled to contain his temper; Eluréd was more prone to tears than to anger. Now both of them were on edge, feeling the weight of what they were going to attempt—and feeling the stark and conspicuous absence of both of their foster fathers. 

Elurín’s mind kept tripping over the name, though, when he thought of Lossenol—of Celegorm. It was still impossible to reconcile the one who had raised them, who had gently teased them and taught them to use a bow and to fight with a sword and a staff and a knife, who had helped Elurín learn how to use the fury that sometimes bubbled up inside him to his advantage, rather than allowing it to take him over, who was always, always there to lean on—with the one from the tales of their grandparents. The one who had turned Nargothrond against Finrod Felagund and who had then led the attack on Doriath that had turned their entire world upside down and cost them both their parents and their sister. Half of him never wanted to see Celegorm again, and the other half wanted desperately to go back a handful of weeks in time to when they had been a family, whole and happy. 

Or as whole and happy as it was possible for people like them to be. He had always known they were a little broken, all four of them, in different ways. It was just that together they did not feel broken. Now, with the four of them scattered and he and Eluréd about to do something very stupid, he felt both already broken and very fragile, as though he might shatter into a thousand tiny pieces at any moment.

With effort he thrust those feelings down, and tried to focus on what was before them. They crouched behind some rocks atop a hill, looking down at Ost-in-Edhil burning ahead of them, as they had for days now as they worked out what they were going to do and how. The morning before they had seen most of Sauron’s armies march out of it, heading north, and had heard the sound of distant horns. “He’s probably dead,” he said. 

“He’s not,” Eluréd replied. “I just know it. Gorthaur is still there too—he wouldn’t stay without reason.”

Elurín knew it too; it was the kind of knowing that came from outside of him, like hearing a snatch of music on the breeze. It probably was something like that, really—something of their great-grandmother in them answering to the Great Music that still echoed through the world. Eluréd was better at listening to it than he was, but he still heard most of the same things. “All right,” he said, and turned to slide back down the steep hillside to where their horses waited. “Let’s go. You distract him, I find Celebrimbor, and then we hope to outrun all the orcs.”

It was the last part that worried him most. Getting into the city wouldn’t be hard with it now mostly empty—they could sing up disguises for themselves easily enough, and pass unseen by all but the keenest of eyes. He had no doubt either that Eluréd’s distraction would work. They were both much stronger singers now than they had been even during the War of Wrath, and neither of them were wounded or wearied, or weakened by lack of food as Eluréd had been when last he’d come up against Sauron. Elurín even thought that he should be able to find Celebrimbor, wherever he was held, with relative ease. He had songs of seeking, and they had met before, albeit briefly, and so he would be easy to recognize. 

Getting him out, if he was hurt, would be harder. Getting away without being followed by an army of orcs and men and whatever else might be serving Sauron now—that would be nigh impossible. The city was only mostly empty.

Eluréd sang the songs of hiding and of disguise as they made their way, cloaked and hooded, toward the city. No one stopped them when they rode in—indeed, there were very few guards, for most of the army that had remained behind was busy looting and destroying what they could not take. There were others too coming and going from the south, messengers on horseback, and so they passed unremarked. Elurín glanced at Eluréd, who kept his gaze on the street ahead of them, expression grim and set. 

Neither of them were strangers to war, but this was new to Elurín. He did not really remember the sack of Menegroth, and a skirmish in the woods or on the banks of a river was very different from the aftermath of a city put under siege. As they went on he became less and less convinced that there were any survivors, let alone Celebrimbor himself. It was as though Sauron sought to not only reduce the city to rubble but to grind the rubble down into nothing. The hatred in the air was thick, sour-tasting and acrid. 

The only building still mostly intact was the great hall of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, though it was blackened and its windows were broken, and blood stained the steps before it; the great doors were twisted and broken, hanging half-off their hinges. Figures came and went out of them, hurrying and slightly hunched. “He’ll be in there, if he’s anywhere,” Eluréd said quietly. It was silent in the square, though elsewhere there were all kinds of strange and terrible noises. Fires burning. Stones breaking. Raucous laughter. The occasional scream. “You’ll have to find another way in.”

Elurín dismounted and whispered calming and comforting words to Rhawhul, while wrapping him up in shadows to hide him in the remnants of what had once been someone’s lovely house, its roof tiles now shattered on the ground and its walls caved in, its gardens and window boxes broken and burned. “Meet you here,” he said to Eluréd, who nodded as he also slipped off of his horse. They embraced, holding on very tightly for a few moments. “Love you,” Elurín whispered.

“Love you too. Be quick.”

“Be careful.” Not be safe—there was no hope of safety, not there.

Elurín slipped soundlessly around the walls of the hall, and soon found a small window into what looked like a storage room—or at least a room now full of boxes and broken crates, piled around haphazardly. The window was already broken, and he hoisted himself up and in with ease. Then he went to the door and opened it just a crack. The hallway outside was dark and silent. He loosened his knife in its sheath and waited. After some minutes, somewhere else in the building, someone screamed. It was a horrible sound, too much like Celegorm’s scream back on the beach, and Elurín flinched back, nearly losing his balance when his heel hit one of the boxes. He steadied himself, heart pounding, and made himself stay still, stay hidden.

After what felt like a very long time, he heard Eluréd’s voice ringing out, singing one of Iarwain Ben-adar’s songs, bright and merry and impossible to ignore. He didn’t move, hardly dared to breathe, and after a minute he felt a shift in the air. Sauron was in the building, and he had heard. Elurín slipped out of the storeroom and down the corridor. He stopped at a turning and turned to press his palms to the stones. The stones knew who had quarried them and who had shaped them, and when Elurín turned his mind to the thoughts of the earth he nearly recoiled for the screams of the stones under his palms, the horror at the defilement of this city and the crumbling of all that had once been so beautiful, of the blood spilled over them and the deaths of so many who had been brave and clever and strong. Tears pricked his eyes, but he could hear Sauron raise his voice against Eluréd’s, chanting spells of revealing, of finding, of a spider drawing its pray to the center of its web; heard Eluréd’s song change to one Lúthien had sung to them when they were very small children. A dangerous choice, but effective. Finally, underneath the agony, Elurín found what he sought. He took off down the halls at a run, slowing only at corners, and almost always finding them empty. Where he didn’t, he murmured words of sleep, an echo of Lúthien’s long-ago singing, that dropped both orcs and Men before they even knew what was happening. He didn't know how long it would last, but he didn’t dare try to put the entire building to sleep, for Sauron would surely notice. As he went his heart pounded so loud in his ears that he felt certain he would be caught just from that.

Finally, he came not to stairs leading down into basements or anything that might resemble a dungeon, but to a large room, once bright and airy, with high ceilings and wide windows. Now it was hazy with smoke drifting in through the broken glass; a fire burned in the forge, spewing forth even more. Papers were scattered around; furniture was broken. Tools once used to make bright and beautiful things were set out now and bloodied with far worse uses.

And upon the floor, chained to an anvil, covered in blood and with a pool of it slowly spreading across the floor beneath him, was Celebrimbor. Elurín murmured a curse and rushed forward. The chains were bitterly cold when he tried to loosen them, and Celebrimbor barely stirred when he finally found something to break the links. He slumped sideways before Elurín caught him. For a moment he though he was too late, but when he pressed his fingers to Celebrimbor’s throat he felt a pulse, weak but there. He pulled bandages out of his satchel, glad that Eluréd had thought of it, and bound up the worst of the wounds. The freshest one was a cut down the center of his chest, stopping abruptly just past his ribs as though interrupted. Blood immediately soaked through the bandages, but there was no time for anything else, not even songs. Then he somehow got his arms under Celebrimbor’s, and hauled him up, draped over his shoulder. 

Now came the hard part. He went more slowly back to the storeroom he’d found before, afraid that Sauron had noticed the chains breaking, or that he knew someone was sneaking around behind him. But Eluréd was doing his part well, his voice rising and falling, stopping and starting as he led Sauron on a merry chase through the city streets. In the storeroom, Elurín set Celebrimbor down to check on him. “Celebrimbor,” he said, taking his face in his hands. “Can you hear me?” He stirred but didn’t wake. His skin felt feverish; the bandages were entirely soaked with blood. “Just stay with me, all right?” Elurín brushed the hair back from his face, which was smeared with soot and blood but otherwise unhurt—his head and his hands, the only parts of him untouched. “I’m going to get you out of here.” He had no idea if Celebrimbor could hear him. He pulled out more bandages to wrap over the ones already there, working as quickly as he could.

Then he heard footsteps in the hall outside, and when he looked he realized that blood had dripped onto the floor—had left a trail right to them. His own blood ran cold, and he grabbed his knife, rising just as the doorknob started to turn. He reached the door as it opened and barely got out of the way of the sword that came through ahead of the guard. He grabbed his arm and yanked, finding a gap in his armor and thrusting his own knife home before either of them could do more than grunt. Slowly, he knelt, lowering the body to the ground, before pulling his knife free. Blood flowed out and began to pool on the floor. Elurín left him blocking the door, and shoved a few boxes in front of it as well, and then turned back to Celebrimbor. With effort, he hoisted him onto the windowsill, and somehow got out himself without knocking either of them to the ground. His heart thudded against his ribs, and it was hard to breathe. He kept thinking that he wanted his fathers, and then tried to push those thoughts away, telling himself that he didn’t, that it was far better for Daeron to be at home and safe, and that Celegorm wasn’t his father, not really—that when they were out of there and Celebrimbor was safe there would have to be a reckoning. 

He didn’t want there to be a reckoning. He didn’t know what he wanted—he only knew that everything had changed and everything he had once thought certain had turned out to have been built on a foundation of shifting sands. And somehow that had led him here.

There was no one outside, so Elurín dropped to the ground, and pulled Celebrimbor after him. He staggered and lost his balance under the weight of him, his knee striking the cobblestones painfully, but he heaved himself up again. Just to the horses. One step at a time. Then they could make a break for it, trusting to speed rather than secrecy. 

Eluréd was on the other side of the square when Elurín finally made it to where they’d hidden their horses. Others had come to see what was happening, but no one moved to interfere. Sauron stood on the steps of the hall, a tall figure shrouded in shadows, his face hidden from Elurín’s view. Rhawhul and Mithrenvos stamped and shook their heads as Elurín reached them, still calm enough but increasingly nervous with the power swirling through the air. It took all of Elurín’s strength to get Celebrimbor into the saddle, and then he only just managed to pull himself up afterward. As he did he whistled like a lark, and a second later Eluréd’s voice faltered, as though he were suddenly weakening. Sauron laughed. It was a terrible sound, and Elurín shivered. Celebrimbor made a soft, pained sound. For another minute Eluréd played at pretending to be struggling on, trying to win whatever battle Sauron thought was being waged. As he did he moved, carefully, through the shadows and the haze of smoke that shrouded the streets, before his voice broke entirely. Sauron’s voice boomed out, and Elurín cringed. The horses did not panic, but it was a near thing. Eluréd sprang out of the shadows and scrambled into the saddle, breathing hard. It hadn't all been an act. “Go, go!” he gasped, and Elurín urged Rhawhul forward. They charged down the street, and if Sauron didn’t realize what they had taken, he realized very quickly that some kind of trick had been played. His voice chased after them, but he was just a few seconds too slow, and their horses, gifts from the horsemen who dwelled in the northern vales of the Anduin, were swift and surefooted, and even more eager than they were to be away from that place.

They finally escaped the city, charging past some orcs near the gates who tripped over themselves in their surprise, and headed south, toward the hills where they’d stopped to make their plans. Elurín looked over his shoulder and saw activity erupting around the walls and gates, but no one gave immediate chase. They didn’t know yet what had been done, what had been stolen out from under Sauron’s very nose. It was far too soon to celebrate—but he looked at Eluréd, who was bent forward over Mithrenvos’ neck, grey-faced with exhaustion, but also grinning, and felt incredulous laughter bubble up in his chest. 

It wasn’t over yet. But they’d done it.