Records of an Inquiry Into Unlawful Conduct in Angband Division C-134-B by kimikocha  

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A postscript.

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3 Yavannië, SA 3264

Dearest E—

The records you sent are, indeed, fascinating. I daresay you can run through certain aspects of the conversation we might have about it in your mind; perhaps we might speak those words in person not too long from now.

I must apologize for my continued tardiness from attending the excavation, while also expressing my wonder at receiving such a bounty of sources that the gods unearthing the troves of ancient Angband could call for anything less than immediate attendance. It must strike you with some irony that one who has devoted so much of his life to record-keeping might be so taken with fallible memory — and perhaps it is a sort of madness! But how sweet a madness it is to hear of ancient unimaginable histories from the lips of ones who witnessed them, to ask one’s questions and hear answers which would otherwise lay beyond reach of scrutiny.

It was in search of such answers that I lately approached the lord Sauron, also called Annatar, whom as we now know is wed to the elven lord Celebrimbor, who rules Eregion and counts himself the grandson of the mythical Fëanáro(!!), though he refuses to entertain further discussion of his forebears. Still, he and his husband have suffered a great deal of questioning with rather more forbearance than I imagined they might given the circumstances of our acquaintance — yes, of course I have included a copy of my notes — which perhaps led me to broach the subject of the records you sent me with less sensitivity than might have been called for. I did not intend at that time to request additional details regarding Miss N herself, only further information on the laws of Angband and the manner of conducting inquiries into matters such as hers, but in my brief outline of the matter it became clear to me from Sauron’s reaction that he recalled his personal acquaintance with it. It was as if his face had turned to stone. When I pointed out that he seemed to know of what I spoke, it was as if his entire body stiffened, and he said very coldly, “Get out. Tyelpë, if you want him to live, get him out of here this instant.”

Alas. Without a word, the lord Celebrimbor rose, put a hand on my shoulder, and gently but quite firmly escorted me out. I perhaps compounded the situation somewhat by impulsively making an appeal to the lord Sauron regarding what responsibilities an author might have toward their unfinished texts; his reply was a very definitive “None whatsoever.” Which he then followed up with, “If I have to hear another word from him, I’m going to remove his tongue.” So unfortunately I am not currently welcome in their presence. In hopes that a little space and time for their displeasure to cool will recommend me back, I have quit Ost-in-Edhil and make now for greater Lindon, where I am told there is a great kingdom of very ancient and hospitable elves who may prove willing to share their tales with me. Before I left I entrusted a letter of apology and a small gift to one of the friends I made during my time among the Mírdain, who has promised to deliver it to those I offended once a suitable length of time has passed.

This is not the end of my tale in Eregion, however. For as I was leaving, I found myself waylaid by a lovely elven lady dressed in the manner I have learned to associate with the Noldor, in long robes with a light veil covering her hair, with a slight limp that she compensated for with a walking stick, who asked me to tarry with her at a nearby teahouse. I must confess that initially I mistook her aim and attempted to flirt with her, which she reciprocated at first but eventually laughed and shook her head, saying that she did not seek me out for company.

“What did you seek?” I asked curiously. She seemed to war with herself for a moment, then looked straight into my eyes and said that she desired to tell her story.

22 Úrimë, SA 3264

First statement of the witness Nárelótë, a bookbinder of Eregion, offered freely to Sakalkhôr, a scholar of the Historians’ College in Númenor

I was born in Beleriand before the Unnumbered Tears and spent the latter part of my life in Gondolin before I was taken prisoner. There is much I could say about all of it, but not right now, under these circumstances — you are a mayfly, you live for an instant, but for me these things are not ancient history, I recall them as clearly as if they happened yesterday. Since you are leaving for Lindon, you might speak perhaps to Pengolodh, whom I knew as Lendalwed in Gondolin; I understand he has intentionally sought to compile a history of sorts of our people, and may be more inclined to tell of these events.

Yes, yes, my own story, of course. Where to start?

The march to Angband was awful — so many of us were women and children, and we weren’t dressed for the weather, or for travel at all. Some didn’t even have shoes. There was almost no food. They drove us like chattel, with whips and shouting, but half the time even they didn’t seem to know what was going on. People asked for food and were told there would be something, but nothing would appear, or maybe just a single loaf of bread. One loaf of bread for thousands of people. They warned us that if we tried to escape, we might be killed. I think a lot of people still tried, and maybe some of them got away, I don’t know. I saw people being whipped for trying to escape, but I didn’t see anyone being killed.

The only lord of Gondolin I saw was Salakanto, the poor man, he couldn’t even walk. I only saw him when they came around putting people who couldn’t keep going into a cart. They took all of them away, and I never saw them again. Salakanto was the only one who stayed with us. I know some of our lords died fighting in the streets and I have no hardness of heart for them, but some of them ran, and I will never forgive them for it. Lendalwed was one of the ones who ran, but he was not a lord and he was not skilled in battle, so I don’t hate him so much. The other ones, though, the ones who ran away and left us to terrible suffering and death and worse, I have nothing but contempt in my heart for them. The fact that he treats them like heroes and our people call him ‘loremaster’ for it is the hardest for me to swallow, out of everything. Yes, I suppose I am furious with him too.

I think most of the people who died on the journey died in the Echoriath. The mountains were not as high there, yes, but that is like telling a man who is drowning at the bottom of the lake that the ocean is much deeper. Many people fell as they were driven, and many people chose to jump. I know they chose because they would jump with their families, hold their babies and jump together. I can still hear the sounds of their bodies breaking far below. The Orcs would sometimes try to stop them if they saw, but sometimes they would look away. As for me, there was no thought in my mind but survival. Maybe that is what ensured I would never die, even after that woman. After what she made me do. Our people say we will die if we are… forced in that manner, so if one does not die, it cannot be said they were wholly unwilling. So perhaps…

I don’t know. Forgive me, I didn’t think I would be so…

It’s been a long time. Many times longer than the amount of time I spent in that hell. And for a very long time, I didn’t think about it at all. It used to be — if people knew you had been to Angband, they would drive you out into the wilderness. Even if they had known you before you went, a lot of people wouldn’t let you return, or they’d grumble and stare if you were allowed back. There were people there in Angband who’d escaped before, and ended up coming back because their own parents and brothers and sisters shut their doors to them. I met someone who had a scar on her forehead, not because of an accident or because Morgoth’s creatures struck her, but because when she tried to go home her own sons threw rocks at her to drive her out, and one struck her in the face. Her own children, whom she nurtured with her life’s essence.

Ah, you are very kind, but what is past is past. Things are very different here. They say you can leave your past behind you, and I suppose if that clemency extends all the way to that monster Sauron, it must extend to me too.

[Interviewer’s note: She laughed wryly as she said this. Though the things she related were bleak and horrible, I often noticed how quick she was to smile and laugh. Never once did she weep, though once or twice I saw tears in her eyes.]

Though I cannot imagine what I would do if instead of him, it were the Lady Thuringwethil. Her name alone still makes me shiver. Those years when she visited — I found myself wishing she would do more of things I never could have imagined wanting, just so I wouldn’t have to…

[Interviewer’s note: She made a gesture and picked up her tea, sipping it in silence for a minute or two. I let her be. It did not seem right to interrupt.]

I appreciate your patience. This is still very difficult to speak about. I suppose it might be difficult for someone like you to understand…

[Interviewer’s note: At this point she made inquiries regarding certain details of my own life, which I answered. In the interest of professionalism, these irrelevancies have been omitted.]

Yes, the journey. I think by the time we reached those terrible gates, the number of captives was reduced by at least a third. Many of those who were left were hurt. I think many of the injuries happened in the mountains. They would come and get you if you collapsed or if you couldn’t move fast enough, and we never saw those people again. They said those people were being carried or riding or something like that, but no one believed it. All of us were covered in filth; we never got the chance to wash. There wasn’t any water, so we gathered up the snow and ate it as we marched. Those of us who were stronger took turns carrying the children who were too little to keep up. I did see an orc carrying a boy whose parents were both dead on his back a few times, but I don’t know what eventually became of him.

By the time we reached Angband’s gates, we were all so wretched that I think few of us had anything left to cry or resist. There were also more soldiers that appeared as we approached the peaks. Different soldiers, I think they were fresh, some of them astride huge wolves, and balrogs carrying fiery whips so large I thought one strike from one would break your back. Some people did start to cry out as we got closer, but I don’t think I saw more resistance than that. What would it have done? We were unarmed, surrounded — they would have just killed us all. Maybe we should have died, maybe it would have been better and we wouldn’t have had people looking askance at us for surviving, but everyone there wanted to live.

Inside the gates — oh, right, I forgot. There was one woman who went out of her mind and tried to run. The orcs grabbed her and brought her back, and I heard her being warned that if she tried again, she could end up branded with the symbol of the Black Hand, but I never saw them do it. I think they might have done it if you got caught trying to escape, but I don’t think it happened to anyone who came back on their own, and maybe it was just a threat. Then inside they had these pools in the floor filled with steaming water where we were told to bathe — they said we had five minutes but they made us get back in if they didn’t think we were clean enough, so it took forever.

—I suppose it was a little patronizing, but I think we were mostly just glad they were letting us finish bathing. We were all disgusting when we arrived, and five minutes wasn’t even close to enough time to get through all the layers of dirt and mud and soot, and volcanic ash — do you have any idea what it’s like to try and get volcanic ash out of your hair? I was just relieved to be sent back.

After a while they started taking groups of people who were waiting off to bathe in other parts of the fortress, but it still took a long time. We had to surrender the clothes we came with, and when we got out they handed us new ones. I heard one of them say ‘you’re one of us now’ or something like that, and all I could think was they were out of their minds. After everything they did to us, how could they call us fellows? But after a while, I hated them less and started to pity them. Even…I don’t know. Most of them didn’t know anything better. Perhaps Námo will redeem them after death.

The intake process, yes. It took forever. Each person was assigned one blanket. People carrying children were given two. Then you got in line again for work assignments, which was the first time I saw Sauron’s secretaries. They all wore the same uniform, black robes with the crest of the lidless eye embroidered in red on the chest. I later learned that you could tell their rank from the way the robes were trimmed — the more red you could see, the higher their rank. They asked your profession and how long you had practiced it, and sometimes a few other questions like what they specialized in or what other skills they had, and then they gave you a small metal pendant with your assignment engraved on it and sent you off to stand with other people assigned to the same section. Then every once in a while, someone would come and lead the group off. I saw many artists assigned to physical labor, even to the mines — I suppose they didn’t see the value in art. I was assigned to work as a seamstress under division C-134-B.

Then finally, finally, we were given something to eat. The food was passed out in this large hall like a cafeteria where you had to present the pendant with your assignment to get your food — or not. If you didn’t work fast enough, if you didn’t meet your quotas, they wouldn’t give you anything. They did let us eat on the first day, but not after that. If you were only a little behind and your captain was willing to wait, you might still be able to get something from the kitchens, but that depended on your captain, and mine was a hideous little toad. I loathed him. He was this odious creature, always scuttling from the room a few minutes before that bitch showed up, or smiling and greeting whatever thing she sent to retrieve me and then ordering me to go with them. Sometimes he said I was ‘permitted’ to leave my station, or that I was lucky to be summoned — as if what she did was—

If Námo redeems them, I hope he hangs that one up by his toes and flays him every night until the breaking of the world. It would probably take that much to redeem him.

Everyone else hated him, too. They and the healers were the kindest anyone was to me. I still have one of their marks on my upper arm, which says one of them is family to me, and more on my thigh, the one that bitch decided to take a bite out of. If there’s anything I regret, it’s that I don’t know what happened to them. Probably they all died. I hope Námo showed them kindness.

That woman. I hadn’t even been there long when she came to me, but I didn’t see her for the first… I don’t know, several weeks? Later on they showed me my clothes, the ones I came in, just as filthy as they were when they had us take them off to bathe, and I just — choked. Over that, of all things. Why that? I don’t know.

I thought that when — when she came to me, I had thought the worst was already over. Nothing could be as hideous as being driven as a slave from my home as it burned. Wretched as I felt, I thought now was the time to lament, for they had taken everything. Everything that mattered. They could take nothing more from me. That’s what I thought.

I had no word for it. I thought I would die. That first time, when I went with her — I thought I was giving my life for his. It would be a horrid death, and he was an orc, but he had been kind — I couldn’t watch him die for me. And when I didn’t die, I thought we were wed. The healer said it wasn’t true, but what would he know? He wasn’t of our people. I was terrified, for years, that we were wed. And she seemed to know what I was thinking — she whispered it to me, that I was hers, that until the ending of the world I would never, never—

Forgive me.

[Interviewer’s note: Adjourned for a time.]

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23 Úrimë, SA 3264

Second statement of the witness Nárelótë, a bookbinder of Eregion, offered freely to Sakalkhôr, a scholar of the Historians’ College in Númenor

[Interviewer’s note: It has been agreed not to discuss certain particulars of what was done to her.]

Ah, yes. The inquiry. The one Sauron held, as if it weren’t half his fault I was there in the first place. Oh, yes, take me as a slave, burn my home, slaughter everyone I love, and I’ll forgive all of it because you draw the line at rape? Nine hundred and four rapes, which you let go on and on and on until the last one nearly killed me? Please.

Yes, he made me a secretary. The very lowest rank on the ladder, because we couldn’t have me get too above my station, could we? So it was under his auspices that I actually did end up lashed — once because his standards were exacting and his grip of Quenya idiosyncratic, and the rest of the time because, one could not make this up, the madman himself decided that I needed lessons. Lessons in responding to pain in a manner appropriate to the culture of Angband. I told you one could not make this up.

Halkiran did it for about two days, then complained that I was a poor pupil and he could not teach me. Then Uzhunahhan did it for two weeks, and did the same. Finally they assigned Namešha, Secretary Sixth Rank Senior, who told a lot of stupid jokes and poked fun at just about everything, even Sauron himself, though he got very nervous and clapped his hand over my mouth and shook his head when I called Morgoth by the name he deserved — and I decided I liked him enough to put up with it. I didn’t think I was going to get anyone I liked better, anyway. He was what they call a child of two worlds, his mother was an orc and his father an elf, and I left Angband at the same time he did, with Ozûtalai’s clan and his. We all got separated in the floods — at least, I hope we were only separated. I hope they didn’t die then. It would be nice for them to have lived free.

—Why the lessons? Oh, allegedly because Morgoth had this delightful idea to hold a feast on the anniversary of the fall of Gondolin, and the even more delightful idea to gather a bunch of the slaves he’d taken in Gondolin together and whip them. And there was some complication to it, like something unpleasant he was going to do to the first one who required restraint or something. If you think that makes it a kindness for Sauron to have ordered me to have lessons in how to be whipped right because apparently I did that wrong, consider the role he had in putting me there in the first place.

If I had never been enslaved, if I’d lived out the First Age in Gondolin — for all King Turukáno’s faults, would he ever have done such a thing? Would I ever have had to learn the word for rape, something I learned for the first time in an Orcish tongue, because I’d only ever heard this thing spoken of in fearful whispers and euphemisms of ‘force’? Besides, was it not Sauron’s own government, the one in which he held more power than any other soul but one, that was the first one to decide that my body was not my own?

So, no. That monster will not have my forgiveness. He gets plenty of it from Tyelperinquar and others. He has no need of mine.

—What happened? Ah — yes, that’s right. I had completely forgotten the inquiry was suspended. I wasn’t there for most of it; I was limping to the latrine with my stick — the same one I have now, actually. The healers requisitioned it and Ozûtalai’s cousin in the carpentry division carved it.

As you can see, I never quite lost the limp. Assurakûn told me it made me look lovelier — wiser, more dignified among his people, which made me laugh and lifted my spirits. Can you imagine? He was very kind, they all were, and by the end I quite adored them. One cannot find oneself needing someone’s help with the latrine and not come away either deeply appreciating them or unable to look at them, you see.

But when Sauron was holding his audiences, I was mostly busy being grateful to be able to handle those matters on my own, and holding out little hope that it would go anywhere. I did learn of the audiences being suspended because for several hours the healers grew very concerned and had someone stand at the door keeping watch, but within a few hours they resumed. What I understand happened was, Morgoth summoned Sauron to the throne room and demanded an accounting of why his lieutenant was wasting time and effort on trifles. Sauron replied however he replied, and the whole thing became an inquiry for treason — then, you see, Thuringwethil’s crime became not raping and nearly murdering me, but arrogating a privilege which belonged to Morgoth alone. Ha! It was all a bit of a farce — everyone knew what the crime was. But now Morgoth was involved. I understand Thuringwethil tried to flee, and for that of all things, I don’t blame her. I would not have chosen the sentence he passed. Nor will I talk about what it was, as I don’t wish to think about it. It was nightmarish. It was the sort of thing which compels pity, and I don’t wish to feel pity for her. Not after what she did to me.

I do not believe she is dead, no. I will not speak further as to her; suffice it to say that she is not here. My life in this city is good. I have a very small bookshop, doubling as my workshop, with a little space above where I may sleep. I am married, truly this time, to an agreeable elf who thinks me more remarkable than I am, though this elf is also quite Sindar and refuses to cover their hair. There are some times when I jump at shadows — I still loathe the scent of witch-hazel, and there are some voices or fabrics which fill me with disgust, and sometimes I cannot abide being around lovers who feed each other sweets. But for the most part, I am content. My nights are warm and still, and the worst thing I fear is what follows when my husband retires after eating too much cheese. I do adore him, more than anything in the world, and he's been very good for me. I do not imagine that woman has ever had anything so good in her life. As far I can tell, she seems to be gone; whereas I am alive, and loved.