And Death Shall Have No Dominion by Prackspoor  

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Part Two. Abyss.

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Three: Promise

 

Fingon makes good on his promise.

Of course he does. Maedhros should have known.

He should have known better than hoping against hope he would be left alone after Fingon had given him his word not to give up on him. He should have known better than to think that he'd get away with slouching off and spending days on end cooped up in his tent. He doesn't feel any more energetic than he used to and he sure as hell doesn't feel any more hopeful, but it has become impossible to lie down and sleep away the days in an indifferent haze like he used to do.

Fingon has taken it upon himself to take care of Maedhros and seeing how there is no getting through to a Son of Fëanor by gentle means, he has simply resorted to bullying Maedhros back into the semblance of a normal life (or at least what qualifies as normal in Fingon's eyes.) Day after day, Fingon chases him out of his tent, forces him into eating and drinking, as well as sparring sessions and running laps around the lake. According to this new mad version of his once-sane cousin the entire ordeal is all for Maedhros' own good - allegedly to get him back into in a reasonably robust physical condition. One could of course argue that Maedhros would not need the exercise if Fingon wasn't so dead-set on drilling him day in, day out in the first place. Somehow, though, Fingon goes deaf every time Maedhros mentions this and then pushes him even more mercilessly for remainder of the training session.

It's horrible. Maedhros doesn't know whether he would have been physically capable of jogging around Lake Mithrim in under seven hours even in his prime, but he sure as anything can't do it now. This is, however, not a good enough reason for Fingon not to make him keep trying. By the end of the day, Maedhros' feet are numb and frozen and his body aches in places he didn't know existed—and then Fingon wants them to go socialising.

“I don't want to play cards,” Maedhros says as he shuffles after Fingon, who is meeting up with a few of the Men around here who had expressed the desire to teach a Noldorin elf prince the proper way to play cards.

“I don't give a damn about all those things you don't want. You're going to enjoy yourself, you'll see.”

Who is he to say no to such an answer? Fingon is a mean cheater, Maedhros thinks, by making it more of an effort to lie down than go out and live his life again. Living and exercising and talking to people was exhausting, but not as exhausting as Fingon nagging at him and kicking him in the ribs (he's actually done that once, that bastard). Fingon simply keeps shouting at him to get up and getting on his nerves until Maedhros gives up and obliges. It looks like Maedhros prevailing against his cousin is simply not going to happen any time soon. Therefore he decides to save what little energy is left to him for a better purpose than resisting somebody who's about as inclined to be impressed by objections as a particularly hard piece of rock. So there's that.

And this is why Fingon is currently dragging him to a game of cards although Maedhros doesn't feel like having fun in the slightest, and this is also why Maedhros follows—not complacent, but surrendering in the face of obstinacy even greater than his own.

Fingon amuses himself greatly. He ends up losing every bit of gold he's brought to the table, to the great delight of his fellow players who conclude that Elves must be naturally untalented at gambling and offer him a revanche just in case Fingon wants to lose a bit more gold. Every single Son of Fëanor would have been at the men's throat for such words, but Fingon just grins and promises to take them up on it.

Maedhros' head is buzzing from the effects of the ale he's been drinking. The men are wary around him. They know him. They know who he is (or who they believe him to be, more like; Maedhros has no idea who or what he is supposed to be nowadays). But when Fingon offers that his cousin play the next hand for him, the men agree. Maedhros hasn't been listening to the rules and he doesn't have the slightest idea how to play, but by sheer dumb luck he manages to win the hand, and the hand after that – and the hand after that as well.

In the end he and Fingon have their five fat gold coins back and the men might just like them both a little less. They're no sore losers, though, and they offer the cousins another round of ale. The moon is already sinking and the quiet of after midnight has come down upon the camp when Fingon and Maedhros decide to get up and leave, taking off in the vague direction of their respective tents.

Maedhros wonders when his life has become so strange and where to go from here – although whether he's thinking, quite literally of the gambling tent or, more metaphorically, of this point in his life, he's not really sure.

They walk in silence, with Maedhros trying to sort through his drunken thoughts, until—

“I'm lost,” Maedhros suddenly says.

Fingon stops, momentarily caught off guard by the question. He appears to ask himself the same question Maedhros has asked himself before – whether to take it literally or metaphorically – then he seemingly reaches a decision and takes a small step closer to Maedhros. “You've been through a lot,” Fingon says slowly. “But you'll find your way, eventually, I'm sure you will—”

“No, I mean I am lost. As in, seriously, I have no idea where I am.” Maedhros turns around, gazing at the tents which all look the same to him. He turns back to Fingon. “Where am I?”

Fingon looks at him disbelievingly for a few moments, then he bursts out laughing. “You've got to be kidding me.” Then he grabs Maedhros' arm. “Ah well, too much ale never did agree with your head. Come, you're staying with me tonight.”

He doesn't protest and allows Fingon to pull him along. His head is still buzzing and the ground seems to be a bit unsteady. Fingon does not look at all affected by the drinking habits of Men and purposefully leads him to the tent Maedhros supposes must be his cousin's.

It must be the last dark hour before dawn when they finally crawl under the blankets on Fingon's cot. Since Maedhros barely spends any nights in his own tent anymore, Fingon has procured a second cot and placed it next to his own, and set aside a few pillows and blankets especially for Maedhros. The gesture is heartwarmingly considerate, but ultimately makes no sense, because each and every night they sooner or later end up under the same set of blankets anyway. Tonight is no different, except for how Maedhros' head is spinning and the fact that every object he looks at suddenly gains a ghostly twin swimming around the original. Maedhros groans and buries his face in Fingon's shoulder.

“I feel like shit. Your idea of having fun sucks.”

Fingon's hand comes up and cards through his hair. “Just close your eyes and sleep it off. You and your singularly foul mouth are going to feel better in the morning.”

His cousin sounds faintly amused, but Maedhros is too tired to call him out on it and anyway, it's the first reasonable thing he's heard Fingon say in weeks, so he decides to do as he is told. He burrows himself deeper under the blankets and with the feeling of Fingon's fingers running through his hair, he drifts off.

 

Maedhros is sure he only closed his eyes for all of three heartbeats, but all of a sudden there is grey light filtering through the tarpaulin, his head is bursting and he feels like throwing up and there's Fingon shaking him awake.

“Get up. We're going for a morning run,” Fingon orders and then whacks him over the head for good measure.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Maedhros rolls around, covering his eyes with his stump and blinking like an ill-tempered white bear woken from hibernation.

“Leave me alone,” he growls and throws himself onto his other side. This is a big mistake because in less than a blink of an eye, he knows he's going to be sick all over his bed and he barely makes it out to the front of the tent before he is retching his insides out. When he straightens up again, Fingon is standing next to him, nonchalantly leaning on a pole, the very picture of the early riser, chipper and dapper at the same time in his dark clothes, and giving Maedhros a smirk that makes him want to throw Fingon headfirst into the lake.

“Well, seeing how you are already awake and soaked in sweat, we could use the opportunity to go for a run, don't you agree?”

Maedhros gives him a baleful glare.

In the end, he goes along. Of course.

 

After the run they spend the afternoon sparring. At this point, Maedhros is fuming with frustration because he has to use his weak left hand to wield the sword. Even though Fingon has gone out of his way to find him a lighter sword he can wield with his untrained left arm, Maedhros' performance would not even scare off a novice and he knows it. The passers-by give him sympathetic glances and their surreptitious looks annoy him to no end. He does not want their sympathy and their pity makes him gag.

Fingon, on the other hand, apparently has about as much use for pretences of pity as for pulling his punches. The rest of the world may be handling Maedhros with kid gloves since he has returned from Angband, but his cousin has never taken off the proverbial gauntlets. He ducks out of the way of Maedhros' angry blow with the grace of a dancer, then dives right under his guard and shoves his shoulder into Maedhros' chest, sending him sprawling on the ground.

“Five points for effort, minus one hundred for style and execution. That was awful.” Fingon steps back, casually twirling the sword in his hand. “I'm beginning to suspect you actually like kissing the ground.”

“You were going for my weak right side all the time,” Maedhros growls as he climbs back to his feet.

“Oh, forgive me. I forgot your enemy will go for your good side if you ask nicely.” Fingon says, his voice dripping with irony.

Maedhros looks at him, teeth bared and chest heaving. He knows Fingon is right and he knows he sounds like a petulant child and he doesn't care, because there is anger, anger everywhere, frustration that runs like fire through his veins and boils his brain and he needs a vent, and he needs it now. “You are an insufferable arse, you know that?”

Fingon twirls his sword in circles. “I know. What are you going to do about it?” Again, that damned smirk, seemingly designed solely to raise his hackles.

Maedhros resists the urge to throw away his sword and tear at his hair. “If I could, I'd punch your ugly mug so hard your grandchildren would still feel it!” he yells over the distance between them.

“Resorting to threats? Pathetic. Come on and do it then.” Fingon's fingers snap shut around the hilt of his sword, and he points it at Maedhros, the tip not quavering in the slightest. He could just as well have been made of tempered steel for all the absolute control and complete mastery his unyielding stance spoke of.

“Shut up!” Maedhros looks at the sword, regarding the cramped, clumsy grip of his left hand, and in a fit of fury he throws it away. “It's no use and you know it!” he shouts. “My right hand was my strong hand and now it's gone! I cannot fight with my left hand!”

Fingon raises an eyebrow. “Just because you lost your strong hand doesn't mean you should never touch a weapon again.”

“I'm weak!”

“No, you—” Fingon hesitates, then lets out a deep breath before amending, “Yes. Maybe. You're worse than you used to be. It's a setback, yes. But it's not a surrender unless you make it one.” Fingon bends down to pick up the sword and then walks over to where Maedhros is standing. He holds it out to Maedhros and his gaze is like steel. “Giving up just because it's gotten a bit inconvenient to go on is not something the Maedhros I know would have done. You know what this Maedhros would have said? 'If Morgoth takes away your right hand, you learn to fight with your left. And if he takes your left hand, you kick him. And if he takes your legs, you learn to fight with your teeth'.” And with those words Fingon shoves the sword back in his hand, takes few swift steps back, and shifts into a defensive stance.

Maedhros watches him sourly.

“Come on,” Fingon goads him. “Come on! You can give up when you're dead! You won't take an excuse Morgoth gave you to give up. We won't let the shadow determine our lives. We live and die on our own terms, and until you're cold and dead in the ground, you're going to fight!”

And suddenly, there's anger. Undirected, suppressed for too long, wild, almost rabid. Maedhros' fingers tighten around the hilt of the sword until his knuckles are white, and he charges forward.

 

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Two: Gauntlet

 

“A hand? What for?”

“For fighting. I need something I can strap a shield or a second sword to and the forearm doesn't work. I was thinking about using little hinges for the joints so I can adjust the fingers—”

“I thought you were done fighting. In fact, I thought you were done living.” With a contemptuous noise, Curufin sits in a folding chair next to his brazier. His gaze is cold.

“Fingon forces me to spar with him,” Maedhros says without much enthusiasm.

“Ah. So that's where all the bruises come from. Your little cousin is kicking your arse and getting too close for comfort. Strange, you never gave the impression you minded getting up close and personal with Fingon during your … sparring.”

Maedhros forces his expression to remain impassive. He wonders whether the choice of words was merely unfortunate or intentionally ambiguous, although he doesn't really dare to hope for the latter. He wonders how much Curufin knows and why. But there is no point in getting a fight over one scathing remark with Curufin of all people, because then they'd spend eternity arguing. Thus, he lets the insult slide and simply asks, “So?”

“I can't forge anything here. I'm missing a smithy, let alone the equipment needed to do something as complex as you want me to do.” Curufin shrugs. “I couldn't help you even if I wanted to, and you cannot order me to, especially seeing how you gave your power of command over us to our uncle.” Curufin pushes himself up and out of his chair and lifts a kettle from the brazier, pouring himself a mug full of hot, dark amber tea.

Maedhros just watches him. He doesn't feel provoked. By Curufin's standards this was almost a friendly rejection. Truth be told, he would have been surprised if there was any less acid in his brother's voice.

“You are still angry at me?” he asks.

Curufin's back stiffens, then he barks out a laugh and turns around, leaning against the central pole of his tent. “Angry?” He sneers. “Angry? No, Nelyo, we are not angry. You just gave away our High Kingship to our uncle, depriving us of our birthright and throwing the whole succession of the Eastern Noldor into disarray! Did you know that your infamous refusal has been everything the generals have been talking about in every council meeting ever since? Oh wait, excuse me – I forgot the tiresome discussions on how to handle the war to Fingolfin’s liking. Our dear Lord Uncle does not deem us efficient enough, so instead of waging war on Angband we are discussing minutiae. But that's nothing, brother dearest, because I'm sure Morgoth will wait until we have sorted ourselves out. It is nothing to lose your head over.” Curufin bares his teeth in a smile that is almost a snarl. “So no, we are not angry.”

Maedhros swallows the barbed words sitting at the tip of his tongue, just waiting to be hurled at Curufin with all vitriol and the fury the spitefulness of his younger brother conjures up in him. Instead he forces a smile. “Good. So speaking of the prosthetic, do you think you could—”

He doesn't get any further because in this very moment Curufin's arm that is holding the mug makes a lighting-fast, jerking motion and something dark and hot hits Maedhros in the face, scalding his skin so quickly and viciously, he can feel it blistering. He wipes his sleeve over his face and it comes away with dark amber stains. Luckily, his eyes are untouched, but his face feels red and raw as if the skin had been flayed away to reveal the flesh beneath, exposing it to the sting and burn of the air. He raises his gaze to Curufin who is slowly lowering the hand holding his now empty mug.

“The nerve,” Curufin hisses. “That you dare ask something of me after what you have done.”

Maedhros is so close to throwing himself at his brother, and he doesn't even care that Curufin could beat him blue and black before he would be able to land even one decent hit with his left hand. But then he suddenly remembers that despite everything that has happened, they are still brothers. He is still the eldest of six—no, he thinks with a surge of nausea—five brothers. It has always been his task to keep a level head and break his siblings up when they had been at each other's throats again. It has been his task as the eldest and the most prudent to make them see reason and restore the peace, instead of adding fuel to the fire.

“I'm sorry, Curvo,” he manages to get out.

The apology has the effect of a bucket of ice-cold water on his flaring temper. As soon as the words are out, he realises that there is so much more that he wants—needs to say. He wants to tell Curufin that he knows that he has made a mistake. He has made the right choice, but for all the wrong reasons; and in a despicable display of egoism, he has shut his brothers out from the decision on the succession of the High Kingship, although it would have been their birthright to have a say in the outcome. He knows that they would have demanded of him to at least try – and deep down he wonders if this is not what he should have done – even though he knows there was no way he could have shouldered the kingship when he could not even pull his own weight. He opens his mouth to speak, but Curufin cuts him off before he gets out one word.

“Get out,” his brother snarls. “Get out of my sight.”

Maedhros turns around and leaves.

***

Later, when he is sitting on a rock at the lakeside, it is Maglor who finds him unexpectedly.

“There you are,” Maglor greets him as he comes to a halt next to the boulder Maedhros is perched on. “You talked to Curufin,” he says and it is not a question.

Maedhros lifts his head, taking in his brother in his dark leather armour and burgundy brown cloak. “Yes, I did. How do you know?”

His brother gives Maedhros a faint smile, and in this moment the ghostly echo of a younger Maglor seems to look at Maedhros from the other side of the abyss of millennia. “If Curufin's terrifying mood and his subsequent tantrum had not informed me of your row in more detail than I ever cared to hear, the burn marks on your face would have told me everything I needed to know. He did, however, leave out what kind of impertinent request it was that got him so angry. What did you ask of him?”

“A mechanical hand,” Maedhros says tonelessly.

Maglor raises an eyebrow at that and he finds himself compelled to elaborate. “Fingon has taken it upon himself to teach me how to fight with my left hand, and he isn't doing it very gingerly. I need a contraption I can strap a shield to that gives me more freedom of movement than my lower arm does.”

“I guess Curufin was not amused that you wanted something of him.”

“You could say that.”

Maglor shakes his head with a small, fond smile.

Maedhros stares at him and his throat clenches briefly when he notices that this is what his brother Maglor is supposed to look like. He doesn't feel much these days, but just the realisation that Maglor is still the same is almost enough to have him burst into to tears right then and there. It's bad enough that Maedhros has lost himself in the eternal darkness under the Thangorodrim. He doesn't think he could bear to see his brothers come undone as well.

But – Maedhros can forget about Maglor's cool greeting when he first woke, as long as he can be sure that at heart, Maglor is still as calm, sensible, and soft-spoken as ever: less driven by the roaring fire that Fëanor had passed on to them, and more by the steady, reliable flame that was apparent in every gentle gesture and every loving word their mother had ever spoken to them.

The sudden wave of homesickness and the realisation that they are never going to see their mother again hits him like a punch to the gut.

He must have winced or otherwise made an involuntary movement, because Maglor looks like something has startled him out of a reverie and he turns to face Maedhros. “Forgive me, my mind was wandering. Where were we? – Ah, Curufin. Well, it's easier to ride a wild horse than giving good advice on how to deal with Curvo when he is angry, but I know for a fact that trying to appease him never achieves anything except confirming his opinion that he was right all along. Try to be less polite and more assertive the next time. Friendliness won't win you anything with a rabid dog.”

“Are you calling our brother a rabid dog?” Maedhros throws Maglor a side glance, a humourless smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Heavens forbid. Celegorm would have my tongue for this insult against canines.”

Maedhros laughs quietly despite himself and Maglor joins in. Maedhros feels old fondness for his younger brother welling up inside of him and he remembers that Maglor used to be the one who was closest to himself, both in age and in manner of thinking.

“Is there room enough for two up there?” Maglor asks and Maedhros scoots over to make room for his brother.

The rock is big enough to provide plenty of space for both of them. Maglor sits down on Maedhros' left, wrapping his cloak tighter around his shoulders, and for a while they simply sit there, their feet dangling just above the water. A memory from before Angband resurfaces – suddenly Maedhros recalls they used to do this back home in Tirion. Whenever they had wanted to duck away from their teachers or their father, they would flee to the beach and there, with the endless ocean spread out before them, they would sit on the stones at the shore, or chase each other through the foaming breakers until their skin was wrinkled and crystallised salt was glittering in their hair and their lashes, and prickling on their tongues.

“Do you remember—,” Maedhros asks, but he doesn't get any further, before Maglor says, “Yes”, and throws him the briefest of smiles. For a while both brothers reminisce in companionable silence and watch the sun set behind the forest that stretches out west of Lake Mithrim.

“It's a strange world, isn't it?” Maglor says.

Maedhros looks up. “Hm?”

“Sometimes I think it is too raw and too brutal for our kind.” Maglor watches the reflection of the sun in the lake, a lonely white ball sinking between a pale sky and the forest, which is throwing shadows stretching out over nearly a mile at this hour. “We Elves were made for perfection and eternity, for paying court to gods and trailing in the wake of their glory, our path already cleared for us in a world where the shores are strewn with diamonds and the sun shines down on gold-green meadows in eternal gossamer. We weren’t made for loss, or death, and yet those are the only two things that this barren world seems to offer us in abundance.”

“And yet even Men have learned to live on these hither shores,” Maedhros says, his gaze losing itself in the blazing white of sparkling sun on the lake. He blinks and his eyes stray away from the blaze to where the reflections of the stars are appearing one by one in the soft violet reflection of the sky above. The stars seem so much further away here in Middle-earth than in Aman.

Maglor shrugs with a wistful smile. Today, he is more like the brother Maedhros remembers and less like the acidic warrior he met when he first woke. “Men are used to this. They live and die so quickly that their lives are just fleeting sparks in the great dark ocean of eternity. But their nature has steeled them in this respect: they are more used to this than we will ever be. It is their land, not ours. I often wonder whether we did right in coming here.”

Maedhros, who has been watching his dangling feet in turns obscuring and revealing the starry surface of the lake with the engrossed fascination of a small child, lifts his head to find his brother looking at him. He holds Maglor's gaze for several moments. “Then why go on with this?” he asks at last with a sweeping gesture that encompasses everything around them. It is a question that has grown inside of him like a tumour, one he simply cannot find the answer to no matter how desperately he seeks it.

Maglor is silent for a long while. At last, he speaks, “A wise chieftain of Men once told me that in life you need the spirit to fight for what you wish to keep, the strength of heart to let go of what is lost, and the wisdom to recognise the difference.” He looks up at Maedhros and all the sunlight in the world cannot fill the void that is in his eyes – and suddenly Maedhros knows exactly how he himself must appear to others. “None of your brothers would ever admit to it, but I have seen their faces. I know the thoughts going through their heads because their thoughts are the same as mine. Not a single one of us would stay here if we could do otherwise. But the road back is lost, the bridges are burnt, and the Oath demands fulfilment.” He reaches out, takes Maedhros' hand, and squeezes it briefly. “There is no way back. We go forward because it is the only way left to us.”

 

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One: Full Circle

He is alone less often than he is used to these days. Fingon keeps him occupied, dragging him through the day by the ear and seeing to it that he does not have any time to lose himself in his thoughts. Sometimes, it still is too much. Quite often Maedhros has to fight down the urge to get up and leave to get the droning buzz of people talking out of his ears. In those moments he longs to retreat to his tent, pull his blanket over his head and see nothing, hear nothing; just silence and darkness, merciful, merciful nothing.

It is therefore a relief when he manages to escape Fingon for once, and he has one magnificent, silent day entirely to himself. It is late autumn now. The grass is brown and wilted, the soil almost perpetually damp with hoarfrost and rain, the lake dull and lifeless and the shadows of the mountains to the north seem to inch closer with every passing day. Heavy, dark clouds are hanging overhead, but today there are little tears in the darkness every now and then, and behind the clouds there is a yellow-whitish sky. The sun pours through the gaps in the clouds like splendid floodlight, sending shafts of gold lancing down through the black and grey to touch the earth in immeasurable distance, far, far away over the endless plains, painting patches of gold onto the dead brown grass.

Maedhros wanders the lake shore alone. Every now and then a flock of herons passes overhead, but his only constant company are the murders of ravens crouching in the naked branches of the trees lining the shore. They fall silent when he draws near, watching him with their beady black eyes, and start cawing again when he is at a safe distance.

He takes his time rounding the lake, strolling along the path that weaves between little clumps of trees and then runs almost in a perfect arc along the waterfront. He follows it at a leisurely pace for an hour or slightly more – he doesn't pay a lot of attention to the passing of the hours, preferring to enjoy the timeless silence of the ancient land around him. The wind is picking up again and the air is chilly and fresh as if it has never been breathed before; it still has the sharp edge of an unused knife, slicing along the inside of his windpipe, not dulled by any use.

Maedhros reaches the northern shore of the lake in the early afternoon, but it takes him a while to walk down the long straight part of the road that forms the northern waterfront until the path gently bends, turning southward again and heading back to the army camp. He stops for a while, curiously looking around in all directions and only stopping when he turns his gaze north across the wide empty plain. He suddenly realises how close he has gotten to Morgoth's domain. His presence here is stronger, like a sickness in the ground, a veil in front of the sun, like a poisonous vapour in the air. The lake is holding off most of it and now Maedhros knows why his brothers have joined Fingolfin's host on the southern shore. He pulls his cloak a bit tighter around his shoulders and walks on. His pace is swifter now and he is eager to continue his walk, following the south-west bend of the path along the lake shore.

When he reaches the point where path straightens at last, now running directly south, the sun is already sinking in the west over the offshoots of the great forest that looms close to the western shore of Lake Mithrim. The sky and the tips of the trees are aflame; the birds are singing their songs of autumn evenings, longing and lonely and wistful. The outermost trees of the forest cast long shadows. They are creeping across Maedhros' path, deep black over the red-tinted ground, the longest of them reaching out even over the water like dark fingers.

He suddenly notices that the birds have gone silent.

Maedhros feels a slight tingling down his spine and then something shifts in the trees to his right. He stops and puts his left hand on the hilt of his blade (he still reaches for the place at his left hip where he used to keep it all these years, but his hand is getting better at remembering that his scabbard is dangling from his right side now).

He tries to make out the space between the trees, but the darkness is impenetrable a few fathoms into the wood, even for the keen eyes of the Noldor. He is not afraid, not really, but his muscle memory and years of combat drills take over where his survival instinct fails to do so – and in the blink of an eye, he has assumed a defensive stance, with the tip of his sword pointed at the darkness between the grey trunks of the firs and pines. He is not afraid, but there is still a jolt of surprise that shoots through him when two yellow eyes suddenly light up not ten fathoms from where he is standing on the path. They are almost of a height with his shoulders and they are not reflecting any light (it's growing dark on the western shore, and fast): instead they burn as if with their own flame.

Maedhros waits.

The shadowy creature moves. It slinks closer. Faint twilight flows over its form like water and suggests the outlines of a great four-legged animal close in appearance to a wolf, but closer in size to a bear. Then it moves out from between the tree trunks and the shadows shift and flow and swirl, like light bending around the edges of a massive star, and Maedhros becomes aware that he has been deluded.

Forward steps a creature not unlike an elf: tall, slender, and clothed in greys and blacks. It carries no weapons, making it seem deceptively harmless – and yet Maedhros does not fall for the illusion; he knows this being is by no means unarmed. Indeed, there is the same strange dichotomy visible in every facet of this being: the wild fall of golden curls down past its shoulders is forming a stark juxtaposition to the immaculate neatness of its clothes, its measured footfalls betray the feral instinct of a predator, and its radiant appearance clashes fiercely with the sinister aura surrounding it like a dark halo.

Its shape is rippling and blurring around the seams until its form becomes clear and final and definite, shifting into focus at last. Only its eyes stay the same, smouldering with a barely subdued unholy fire.

Suddenly he is back in Angband, hundreds of leagues under the ground, in a chamber alight with hell-fire reflecting off wicked instruments of torture – their numbers innumerable and their cruel purposes unfathomable for a sane mind – with a thousand sharp tips and blades and serrated knives. He can't move, he can't talk, it's like those nightmares in which he is too weak to lift even a finger; when he wants nothing more than to scream, only to realise he has no voice. He tries to will himself to wake, but it is too real, only this chamber, this fire, this knife is real, and he knows what is about to come, he realises that this is no dream and that there won't be an awakening—

Fear rolls over him like a wave and for a few moments he is struggling to breathe, only just managing not throw his sword away and run, run like a rabbit with a wolf on its heels. The rational part of him knows that the creature is reaching inside him, closing its ghostly grip around his instincts and fears and nightmares, twisting, making him do it, DO IT DO IT, JUST DO IT—RUN!, but the terror is so great that for a moment he thinks he is going to lose the fight for his own will.

He stumbles back half a step—and he almost, almost caves and sends a prayer to Elbereth—but then the terror draws its tendrils back and he is able to breathe again. His knees are weak and jittery and he feels out of breath, as if Fingon had just chased him around the entire lake without a single break—except no, this is not true, he feels like he had felt back then when he had been bound to the stone table, the cracks clotted with blood that was only partially his own, and this unnatural cold, this unnatural sensation of air everywhere around his ribs, his lungs: places where air wasn't supposed to touch; and the dark figure standing over him, a knife in hand, asking, “Now do you not wonder what would happen if I severed this here—”

It is this breathlessness he is feeling now, every breath a fight against the terror that is squeezing his lungs to the size of a fist, feeling that he is suffocating even as he is gasping for air, because there is simply not enough of it for him to hold his breath through the pain that is coming—

Maedhros shakes his head, trying to get those thoughts out of his head. They were not his own and he would not fall prey to them. He would not.

“You,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. “What are you doing here?” (It should not be here, not this far south, not this far into their realm.)

The creature bares its teeth in a smile that is as white as mother-of-pearl and as sinister and sharp as a poisoned blade. “I was roaming the lands,” it says, “when our birds brought the tidings that you were still alive and well. I came to see you. You must understand my worry when I came to look for you on the mountain and you were no longer there. I had to come and see it for myself to convince myself of your escape, and afterwards I very much desired to find you.”

“Have you come to capture and torture me again?” Maedhros snarls, backing away from the shadow, lifting his blade a bit higher.

The creature raises an eyebrow. “Capture and torture? Valar forbid, such evil intentions. I merely came to talk to you.”

“I will not talk to the whip-dog of Morgoth!” Maedhros keeps his eyes on the creature, forcing himself not to blink. He slowly takes a few steps sideways and then backs away from the monster, keeping to the path.

“Fine. Then don't.” Sauron shrugs, ambling alongside the path, keeping abreast of Maedhros – but at the same time keeping to the dark side of the sharp divide between the shadows of the trees and the sunbathed strip of land along the shore where Maedhros is walking. Maedhros watches the monster and the monster watches him and Maedhros wonders why it has not attacked him yet. They play their game back and forth for a while, Maedhros backing away and Sauron keeping up without any visible effort. He does not attack. For now, he seems content to walk and watch Maedhros struggling to get away from him.

Maedhros is busy keeping his sword raised and his eyes on Sauron, while he is trying to walk without falling over backwards into the lake. Maedhros skirts the dark places on the ground, trying to keep away from the growing shadows of the trees, while Sauron neatly avoids stepping into the sunlight, staying far enough from the border so the light does not touch his head. Maedhros wonders whether this is just another trick of the dark lieutenant: pretending to be unable to leave the shadows so Maedhros might drop his guard.

He wonders what to do, whether he should lunge forward to gain at least the moment of surprise over his overwhelmingly powerful enemy. Then again, maybe it is a trick to lure him into entering the shadow – which might just seal his doom if the boundary between light and shadow did indeed present an obstacle for Sauron. Or maybe this is what the dark Maia wants him to think and Maedhros is only still alive because of a whim on Sauron's part, like a predator playing with its prey: letting it escape time and time again, until the hunter at last moves in for the kill.

Maedhros' works through all the scenarios in his head, but they yield no definite answer and the insecurity is driving him mad. His thoughts grow more and more frantic and the tension in his body rises to unbearable levels – until at last his patience snaps.

“Coward!” Maedhros shouts. “If you want to fight, then come forth and do it!”

Sauron merely smiles the smile of a chess player whose opponent has just manoeuvred himself into a checkmate trap by the very actions he had taken in the desperate attempt to avoid the snare.

Sauron has his hands clasped behind his back and takes a few languid, sauntering paces, which bring him within a distance of six feet with Maedhros who has the sinking feeling that he is being pulled at the strings, walking down a predetermined path and going through motions that have been decided for him beforehand.

“I already told you, I am not here to fight.” Again: Sauron's smile and the feeling of a noose slowly pulling tighter around Maedhros.

Why? Why? When does a predator forgo a fight?

Maedhros turns around, looking for a hint, anything that might tell him what is happening. He looks out over the sea, up and down the path that lies in sunlight before him and in shadow almost immediately behind him. When he figures it out the blood drains from his face.

The predator only stops when the trap has already been laid out and the prey is about to walk right in.

All this time, Sauron has done nothing – in order to give Maedhros more to puzzle about, in order to send him deeper and deeper into a downward spiral of guessing and second-guessing himself and Sauron's true intentions. While Maedhros has been occupied with keeping his guard up and keeping an eye on Morgoth's lieutenant, he has forgotten the first and most important rule of battle.

Always, always know where the real threat is.

While Maedhros has been distracted, the sun has sunk further. It is a huge red ball, hanging barely two hand-widths above the treetops and in its fading light, the shadow has crept up on Maedhros: silently, ominously, moving always in his blind angle. It is only mere inches from his heels.

Maedhros jerks his head up, his eyes wide.

Sauron raises both eyebrows at him, and it is impossible to tell whether he is impressed or dismayed. “Very good. Close, but still in time, if only barely.” He gives Maedhros an approving smile.

Maedhros tries to shake the realisation of how narrowly he has avoided his doom, and walks faster.

Sauron keeps up without effort and Maedhros sees the dark Maia looking at him. “You must be smarter than we gave you credit for in order to escape. I hope you are enjoying the amenities that are due to you after all that you have gone through. Pray tell, Maitimo, how are you enjoying your freedom?”

Maedhros only spares him him a brief look. His face feels cold and numb.

“Not so much? But why ever not?” Sauron smirks. “Should you not be content? Should you not be happy? But no, you are not, am I right? I can guess how you must feel: hollow, empty, unable to see sense in your existence any longer. Discontent. Angry. Torn.”

Against his better judgement, Maedhros stops. The choice of words and the intonation are too precise, too deliberate for it to have been a coincidence. But he must not ask. He must not take Sauron up on his game or he will lose. “You cannot torment me any longer,” Maedhros says sharply. “You might as well keep your forked tongue behind your teeth and save yourself the effort.”

Sauron still watches him, and Maedhros' sharp words do nothing to shake his eerily calm, deceptively amiable demeanour. “No, no, it is fine. I agree. I could hardly devise a method of torture any worse than what you are already doing to yourself.” Again, that slow smile.

Maedhros walks faster, careful to keep ahead of the creeping shadows. “If not for capture or torture, why are you here?” He grits his teeth.

Sauron shrugs. “I came here—oh, put that sword down, will you? I already said I have no intention of fighting you.”

Maedhros does not humour him. Of course not.

A low sigh and a roll of his eyes, as if Morgoth's lieutenant was dealing with an obstinate child. “Have it your way. I only wanted to see how you were doing. Not many succeed in escaping from Angband, so of course we prison-keepers have a keen interest in understanding how it could happen and how our famous escapee is faring now. For it is said to be the dearest wish of all who are imprisoned there to be able to walk free and without pain, to be back among their loved ones and no longer have to fear for limb and life. Thus, reason suggests that those who escape must be very happy, having reached all they ever wanted. And yet you are standing before me, Maitimo, and I cannot help but wonder why you look so utterly and completely miserable.”

Maedhros almost drops his sword then and there. Every word is a punch to the gut, hurting not because they are delivered with violence, but because they are true. How often has he been lying awake at night, wondering about exactly the same thing, asking himself why it had become impossible for him to be happy when by all means he should be jumping with joy for being alive? For a moment he is taken aback by so much unexpected understanding. How can anyone who is his enemy speak like he knows Maedhros' troubles as if they were his own? How is it possible that it is Sauron who understands him better than anyone else—dare he even say: completely?—and puts a name to all the questions plaguing him, speaking with such sympathy and kindness?

But this is Morgoth's lieutenant he is talking to, the Dark One's silver-tongued second-in-command who could twist a word to mean its opposite and devise a world of lies more splendid and real than the truth. Maedhros cannot allow himself to listen to a single thing he says, not even… no, especially not when Sauron speaks as if he has just looked right into his soul, and is now repeating his most secret concerns and most desperate wishes back to him. Maedhros wrenches his good sense back under his own control, repeating to himself, A friend can understand you well, but no one can understand you completely unless he has wormed his way into your soul, dissected your mind and eviscerated your every thought and desire.

“Don't try to spin your web of lies around me, Sauron, I am not listening.”

“Oh, but you are.” Sauron still ambles abreast with him, but he is closer now. The shadows are growing longer and deeper. “Because you have wondered this yourself.”

Maedhros passes the last offshoot of the forest and then the wide, sun-flooded plain is ahead of him. Sauron remains in the shadows. Bathed in sunlight, Maedhros looks back at the monster in the twilight. “You no longer have dominion over me. I am free. Free from your torture, and free from your words. I escaped.” And with that he turns his back on him at last and makes to walk away, but Sauron's voice catches up with him.

“But you left something behind, did you not?”

Maedhros whirls around. Sauron is standing at the very edge of the shadow of the woods and he is holding up something that makes the breath catch in Maedhros' throat.

Sauron has raised one hand and in it he is holding a leather strap. Dangling from this string, twitching and bloody and alive as it was in the moment Fingon's blade bit through his wrist, is a hand. His hand.

For a moment, time stops and the world tilts sideways. Without Maedhros’ conscious decision, his legs are carrying him back. He moves like a dreamer, until he stops in front of Sauron, standing right at the edge between light and shadow, staring at his own hand grasping feebly at the air as if it wanted to get away from Sauron and come back to him.

“That's mine.”

Sauron smiles. “It was yours. This was still hanging in the otherwise empty shackle on the abandoned mountain when I came to look for you. At first I was angry, which you will of course understand. I thought it worthless, a mockery left behind to aggravate your prison-keepers with how they could not keep you, because they underestimated your willingness to sacrifice a part of yourself for your freedom. But then I looked closer and I saw that you had sacrificed more than a hand at first glance. A sacrifice so great I doubt you even noticed you made it when you did.” Sauron's smile grows wider and it is a horrifying grin now, blood-red gums and teeth that are suddenly too pointy for anything walking on two legs.

Maedhros makes a feeble move to reach out with his stump, but his left hand clutches his right arm back and he stands there, his chest heaving, his eyes fixed on the hand – his hand.

Sauron watches Maedhros struggle against himself with faint amusement, then his face abruptly turns serious again. “You were already coming apart before you were rescued.” It is not a question.

The hand is dangling before Maedhros' eyes, still twitching desperately. It is his hand. Those are his fingers with his blood clogged under his fingernails. Those are his crooked finger joints, broken and healed too often to count, without the bones ever being set properly again.

“You do see it now, do you not?” Sauron says gently. “You ran away, but you never truly left.” He lets the hand sink and Maedhros' eyes follow it, hypnotised. Sauron takes it in his own two hands and runs a long finger over the knuckles, like a lover's caress.

“For how much longer do you want to go on being half a person, Maitimo? How much longer will you be able to bear being in two places at once, living a half-life you aren't made for?” His thumb is drawing circles on the back of Maedhros' severed right hand.

“I could make you whole again,” Sauron says. “I have rebuilt towers from dust. I have remade life from scraps of pulp. It is of no difficulty to me to give you back your hand. Your soul. Your life. You just have to take it.” And then Sauron holds it out to him, offers to him his missing limb, the hand that made him the warrior he has been.

Maedhros looks him in the eye and he sees only sincerity there, concern, love even. He feels like he is walking through a surreal haze when he steps closer and Sauron carefully places it in the crook of his maimed arm, where Maedhros cradles it like an infant.

My hand. My hand. The hand that made me who I was.

Maedhros stares at his hand, entranced. The bloody thing is nestled against his chest, smearing red stains over his shirt where it is scrabbling for purchase like a kitten wanting to climb up to his shoulder.

It wants to come back to me. And I want to have it back, too.

An arm comes to rest around his shoulders; a gentle grip, but irresistible like iron. “All you have to do is to say yes.” Sauron's voice is close to his ear, gentle, coaxing, sweeping over his skin like a warm breeze. They are both standing in the shadow now. “What do you say?”

“I…” He doesn't finish the sentence although his voice is thick with want, betraying his desire where words fail him.

“Ah, Maitimo. Don't be afraid to accept what is given as a gift. Come, put your weapon away so we may shake hands on it.” Sauron holds out his left hand to Maedhros.

Maedhros looks at him and then slowly, lifts his left hand as well—

—and freezes when he sees the sword he is still holding. He is about to put it in its scabbard although he cannot remember having decided to do so. It is the light sword Fingon had given him to use with his weaker left arm. And then he remembers the echo of something Fingon had said during one of their sparring sessions, the words drifting to him as if coming from a great distance, as if his cousin was calling for him from beyond a veil or a great abyss.

You won't take an excuse Morgoth gave you to give up. We won't let the shadow determine our lives.

And Maglor. The only way left is forward.

Maedhros grips his sword a bit tighter. He notices the nails of Sauron's hand digging into his shoulder even through his thick cloak. He looks into his eyes and there is no more sympathy, but only greed and triumph.

“I don't need your alms,” Maedhros says. “We live and die on our own terms, Sauron.” And he yanks up his arm and sweeps his sword in front of him in a half-moon arc, slicing through Sauron's proffered palm and the front of the Maia's robes.

Sauron staggers back, clutching his hand to his chest. Sauron stares at his sliced palm, then raises his gaze to meet Maedhros' eyes. They look at each other for a few moments, neither of them quite able to believe what has just happened, then Sauron's surprise turns to fury and his eyes are wild, the amber of his retina blooming to fill his entire visible eye with a flaring orange, his pupils slitted and his teeth bared.

It is a sight Maedhros knows from Angband and in its familiarity it is almost comforting. Now at least he knows that Sauron is not going to play pretend any longer. Open confrontation is something he is familiar with, something he is good at. This he can handle.

Maedhros steps back out into the sunlight again. “It was a mistake to approach me like that, hoping that my want for my hand would blind me enough to agree to your terms. But once again you, as you so fittingly put it, underestimated what I am willing to sacrifice for my freedom.” His voice grows firmer with every word. “You thought you could hold my mind captured forever by baiting me with the impossible, so I would be unable to ever move on. I know your methods from years of experiencing them first-hand, but I see right through them now; your gifts are like double-edged swords and they always come with strings attached. What would it have cost me to get that hand back, I wonder? I won't even try to imagine the price, I only know it could never be worth it. I shall no longer be your thrall. I will let go of the past and I am going to break the hold you have over me. I can never be whole again, but I can be truly free.”

And with those words Maedhros throws the hand to the ground and plunges his sword right through its palm. Sauron starts forward, but he is too slow. The blade bites into the flesh and as it cuts through the hand, a fountain of darkness shoots out of it and Maedhros feels a link in his mind break. Black sludge and thick fog spills from the hand as the dark spell that has bound it to Maedhros comes undone.

When the fog lifts, Sauron has vanished and the glowing evening sun has redoubled its strength. The only reminder of what has happened is a rotten hand lying on a patch of scorched grass, its brown skin shrunken, shriveled, and desiccated, its fingers bent to claws in death.

Maedhros takes a last glance at it, then turns around and walks back to the camp.