Tag: salmaganto

Pt 2: An unanticipated survival

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Salgant woke, and again it was some moments before he remembered: the fall, the unexpected glint of hope. That he would take the offer was not in question. If it was a trick or some cruel jest, so be it.

He washed and dressed with the air of a warrior arming himself. His mind shied away at the thought of Saur – Forgemaster Thú – finding him pleasant to look upon, but he must be at his sharpest regardless. Lives would depend on it. He touched the stained emblem on his ruined festival clothing, and then turned the fabric over. The living before the dead, always.

What would he need to prepare? Salgant could keep any figures or agreements in his head without trouble – he was, after all, a trained bard – but memory was easier changed than paper. Salgant searched for it, but that, apparently, was one need that Saur – the lieutenant had not foreseen. Food, also. Though his body had passed through hunger, Salgant knew that starving himself would help no one.

Taking a deep breath, Salgant rang the bellpull. What would answer, he did not know.

After brief scratching and scuffling, a goblin answered. At least, presumably it was a goblin– it wasn’t quite an orc, and definitely not a man. It had round, amber eyes and a flat, furry face, its limbs long and spidery as a langur or gibbon’s. It squinted at Salgant suspiciously under tufted eyebrows, having difficulty meeting the glinting stars in his elven eyes. 

“What do you want?” it squeaked, its hand clenching the door handle while the rest of it hunched near the floor. Little fangs flashed as it spoke, “Food? Water? Piss pot?” It hesitated, putting a long finger in its mouth and muttering, “…Do elves piss? Never heard of an elf pissing…” 

An unanticipated survival.

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“You think a very great deal of my persuasive abilities,” Salgant remarked, huffing a breath that might, in other circumstances, have been laughter. It was more honest than he would have preferred, but he was steadily losing his chain of thought, and the idea that anyone at all could persuade captive Quendi to ally with Morgoth was almost too outlandish to comprehend. Salgant could not even picture Rog’s face at hearing it. (Rog was surely dead, and had no face to grimace with.)

Salgant accepted the offered arm as he would from any of his comrades in Gondolin, and it was only after he had regained his footing that the incongruity struck him. Even then it was a distant blow, and left him blinking dully at the feel of the muscled forearm under his hand. That arm, too, had slain his kin.

The effort to stand had taken a toll, not only on Salgant’s thought, but his leg. There had been just enough time for it to set up on him, and he rested his weight on it as gently as he could. Nor could he quite put his thoughts in order, and that was more vital by far.

Ah. Yes. “You are generous,” Salgant said, and meant it, “but I cannot… in good faith… make such commitments without, without conferring on behalf of… those held here.” ‘Slaves,’ ‘prisoners,’ ‘captives’ – which would be more diplomatic, which might favorably incline the Accursed toward Salgant? Which had Sauron himself used? Salgant fought for clarity.

Sauron braced the elf more thoroughly before he could topple over in a faint, which his swaying seemed to threaten. 

He clicked his tongue admonishingly; “Yes, yes, you’ll be given due time to consider. The room and board are not binding commitments, only a place for you to deliberate,” then seeing how his guest was gingerly favoring his leg, he added “pardon the indelicacy,” and without waiting for leave, scooped Salgant up with both arms.

There was no reason for them both to hobble down the long hallway at an injured pace. Salgant had an unusual build for an elf, stout and compact and well-padded for enduring the cold (a configuration which the lieutenant discovered he found most appealing), but even if he’d weighed as much as three anvils, it would have made little difference to the Maia, who hefted the lord from Gondolin as though he were merely a large cat.  

Whatever the elf’s objections, he bore him to the appointed chamber at a clip, finding the room prepared and a fire already laid– the ears and eyes of his servants were keenly attuned to his wishes, and had needed no more prompting than the whip-crack of his thought. 

As promised, the room was not opulent, but it was warm and dry and well lit, practically furnished for ranked guardsman or soldier. There was a large basin with water, clean clothes, and most importantly a bed that was clearly designed for an elf rather than an orc. In fact, it had been Maeglin’s quarters for a time, but Sauron did not feel the need to disclose this. 

He deposited his guest upon the near end of the mattress with care if not dignity, jostling his wounded leg as little as was possible. 

“Rest, Lord Salgant, and if you need anything from my servants, there is a bell-pull that will alert them. If you wish to treat with me, you have only to say my name aloud, and I will be made aware,” he smiled, his yellow eyes glittering. 

Scooped up in Sauron’s arms, Salgant felt much more like a rabbit seized by the wolf. He made no more protest than a startled gasp; he hadn’t been carried so since he was a very young child. It scattered his thoughts completely. He held himself very still, and made no protest at all throughout, even at the less-than-dignified placement on the bed. He could not begin to consider the provenance of the room, or its bed – it was all he could do to not think about having been carried to bed by Sauron the Accursed.

Salgant mustered enough common sense to say, “Which name is most to your liking? I would not want to offend.” The names Salgant knew may as well have been curses.

“What’s this? Manners? In an elf? What a pleasant surprise!” He laughed, putting a hand to his chest and making an elegant bow, as if introducing himself for the first time. “’Sauron’ will do; I’ve become accustomed to it as a name, however unlovely, or ‘Thû’, if you prefer– as has been my habit for several centuries. Otherwise, ‘Forgemaster’ or “Lieutenant” are my titles; there are no lords here but Melkor.” 

A cursory glance to the room assured him that all was in order, and a snap of his fingers at the fire set it blazing a few degrees hotter, the flames leaping eagerly as if to please him. With that he turned and ducked out of the room with a courtly gesture. “I wish you swift recovery.” 

The heavy door shut behind him. 

An unanticipated survival.

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There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

Salgant took a deep breath and released it, trying to cudgel his mind into functioning at something like its normal capacity. This… no, nothing like hope, he was too drained for hope, but maybe… maybe potential. A path, a way out. Not for him, but for others. Turgon might not have understood – but Rog would have. Besides, they were both dead. Salgant had ever put the living before the dead, however beloved.

“If you know loyalty and grief, then you must also understand my reluctance,” he said, much more measured now. “Only a day or two after my city is destroyed and my king is killed, and you ask for my service? It’s been said I was cold-hearted and I admit that it’s so, but there is still blood in my veins, not ice.”

The lines of his face softened; it was not a concession, not yet, but it was nearer to one. 

“Of course. You need time. We all do– this will be a difficult period for us all.” 

He refilled the glass a third time, the crystal decanter emptying to its last sparkling drops. Melted snow water from beyond the peaks of Thangorodrim, clearer and less sulfurous than the stuff brought up from around the fortress; he’d had it retrieved specially. It was not what prisoners drank. 

“Perhaps you are correct after all that I do not understand the hearts of the Quendi. We have lived under the same sky for centuries, yet I am not familiar with your needs, your wants.  How could I know better than you what motivates your kind? It is my earnest wish to learn more, to see with your eyes. I will need assistance if I am ever to build a realm for my Master that accommodates us all.” 

…If such a thing is even possible, he thought, once again feeling the enormity of the task ahead, salvaging order from the bloody wreckage of an entire Age.
 It was a strange thing for an immortal Maia, sprung into existence already knowing all he needed for the task intended for him, to realize how much there was still to learn of the world he helped create. Certainly it would be a shame if an entire species had to be eradicated simply to make Melkor’s dream a reality. He hoped to avoid that. It seemed wasteful. 

“As you know, it wasn’t very long ago that we were under prolonged siege ourselves. Our supplies are what you’d expect for the end of a 500 year long campaign… Alas, for the moment I cannot tempt you with more marvelous food and drink than what my captains take, and what is indulgent to an orc may not be at all appetizing to an elf,” he chuckled. “Still, I beg you to accept my accommodations while you consider your answer. Your wounds will do better for resting in a proper bed, with a warm fire and bath… And my lieutenant would not be given a second opportunity to make you take the stairs.” 

Salgant had never been the subject of an attempted seduction before. Perhaps one day he would find it humorous that this was the first. The water was naggingly familiar, now that the smoke in his throat had cleared enough to taste it. Still, Salgant drank as slowly as he could.

He could not yet bring himself to address the question of hospitality aloud; he set it at the back of his mind to think through. His heart quailed at the thought of those stairs, but he would not allow that to be a factor. He must think of strengthening his position at this bargaining table. Everything he could offer was solely at the discretion of Sauron, who pursued this, as far as Salgant could tell, only for the novelty.

“I am no great moral philosopher, if that is what you seek,” Salgant demurred. “My bent has ever been more to practical matters, I’m afraid.”

It would offend the Maia to refuse that offer of luxury; it would let Salgant better muster his energies to accept. Salgant would seem more agreeable to Sauron’s agenda. (Agreeable! To Sauron’s agenda!)

“Still, I would like to advance my people’s freedom however I may. You mentioned some possibility of… earning such a thing?”

The thought of accepting Sauron’s offer curdled Salgant’s very soul. To leave innocent people behind to suffer and die –  he couldn’t. He hadn’t even been able to do as much for the guilty! No, he would have to make this work somehow.

He allowed himself a smile, a quick flash of pointed teeth and no more. 

“Of course,” the smith leaned intently over his crossed knee. “You need only convince the majority of them that cooperation is in their best interests. The sooner they swear never to take up arms against my Master, to forsake the kings and the cause that led us into these many centuries of war, the sooner they can be released to start a new life for themselves. I do not say that blithely– I know how much has been destroyed, how much must be made anew. But let them know that if they make their peace with us, they will not be alone in the rebuilding. You can do this better than I. They are your countrymen.” 

The elf’s complexion was looking increasingly grey, though his voice grew stronger after each drink. This was surely too long and stressful a negotiation to be had with someone about to fall unconscious in his chair. 

“I will make part of this decision easier for you– let me accompany you to your new room, where you can rest.” He rose and crossed the distance to his guest, bending to offer his arm for support. 

“You think a very great deal of my persuasive abilities,” Salgant remarked, huffing a breath that might, in other circumstances, have been laughter. It was more honest than he would have preferred, but he was steadily losing his chain of thought, and the idea that anyone at all could persuade captive Quendi to ally with Morgoth was almost too outlandish to comprehend. Salgant could not even picture Rog’s face at hearing it. (Rog was surely dead, and had no face to grimace with.)

Salgant accepted the offered arm as he would from any of his comrades in Gondolin, and it was only after he had regained his footing that the incongruity struck him. Even then it was a distant blow, and left him blinking dully at the feel of the muscled forearm under his hand. That arm, too, had slain his kin.

The effort to stand had taken a toll, not only on Salgant’s thought, but his leg. There had been just enough time for it to set up on him, and he rested his weight on it as gently as he could. Nor could he quite put his thoughts in order, and that was more vital by far.

Ah. Yes. “You are generous,” Salgant said, and meant it, “but I cannot… in good faith… make such commitments without, without conferring on behalf of… those held here.” ‘Slaves,’ ‘prisoners,’ ‘captives’ – which would be more diplomatic, which might favorably incline the Accursed toward Salgant? Which had Sauron himself used? Salgant fought for clarity.

Sauron braced the elf more thoroughly before he could topple over in a faint, which his swaying seemed to threaten. 

He clicked his tongue admonishingly; “Yes, yes, you’ll be given due time to consider. The room and board are not binding commitments, only a place for you to deliberate,” then seeing how his guest was gingerly favoring his leg, he added “pardon the indelicacy,” and without waiting for leave, scooped Salgant up with both arms.

There was no reason for them both to hobble down the long hallway at an injured pace. Salgant had an unusual build for an elf, stout and compact and well-padded for enduring the cold (a configuration which the lieutenant discovered he found most appealing), but even if he’d weighed as much as three anvils, it would have made little difference to the Maia, who hefted the lord from Gondolin as though he were merely a large cat.  

Whatever the elf’s objections, he bore him to the appointed chamber at a clip, finding the room prepared and a fire already laid– the ears and eyes of his servants were keenly attuned to his wishes, and had needed no more prompting than the whip-crack of his thought. 

As promised, the room was not opulent, but it was warm and dry and well lit, practically furnished for ranked guardsman or soldier. There was a large basin with water, clean clothes, and most importantly a bed that was clearly designed for an elf rather than an orc. In fact, it had been Maeglin’s quarters for a time, but Sauron did not feel the need to disclose this. 

He deposited his guest upon the near end of the mattress with care if not dignity, jostling his wounded leg as little as was possible. 

“Rest, Lord Salgant, and if you need anything from my servants, there is a bell-pull that will alert them. If you wish to treat with me, you have only to say my name aloud, and I will be made aware,” he smiled, his yellow eyes glittering. 

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

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There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

Salgant took a deep breath and released it, trying to cudgel his mind into functioning at something like its normal capacity. This… no, nothing like hope, he was too drained for hope, but maybe… maybe potential. A path, a way out. Not for him, but for others. Turgon might not have understood – but Rog would have. Besides, they were both dead. Salgant had ever put the living before the dead, however beloved.

“If you know loyalty and grief, then you must also understand my reluctance,” he said, much more measured now. “Only a day or two after my city is destroyed and my king is killed, and you ask for my service? It’s been said I was cold-hearted and I admit that it’s so, but there is still blood in my veins, not ice.”

The lines of his face softened; it was not a concession, not yet, but it was nearer to one. 

“Of course. You need time. We all do– this will be a difficult period for us all.” 

He refilled the glass a third time, the crystal decanter emptying to its last sparkling drops. Melted snow water from beyond the peaks of Thangorodrim, clearer and less sulfurous than the stuff brought up from around the fortress; he’d had it retrieved specially. It was not what prisoners drank. 

“Perhaps you are correct after all that I do not understand the hearts of the Quendi. We have lived under the same sky for centuries, yet I am not familiar with your needs, your wants.  How could I know better than you what motivates your kind? It is my earnest wish to learn more, to see with your eyes. I will need assistance if I am ever to build a realm for my Master that accommodates us all.” 

…If such a thing is even possible, he thought, once again feeling the enormity of the task ahead, salvaging order from the bloody wreckage of an entire Age.
 It was a strange thing for an immortal Maia, sprung into existence already knowing all he needed for the task intended for him, to realize how much there was still to learn of the world he helped create. Certainly it would be a shame if an entire species had to be eradicated simply to make Melkor’s dream a reality. He hoped to avoid that. It seemed wasteful. 

“As you know, it wasn’t very long ago that we were under prolonged siege ourselves. Our supplies are what you’d expect for the end of a 500 year long campaign… Alas, for the moment I cannot tempt you with more marvelous food and drink than what my captains take, and what is indulgent to an orc may not be at all appetizing to an elf,” he chuckled. “Still, I beg you to accept my accommodations while you consider your answer. Your wounds will do better for resting in a proper bed, with a warm fire and bath… And my lieutenant would not be given a second opportunity to make you take the stairs.” 

Salgant had never been the subject of an attempted seduction before. Perhaps one day he would find it humorous that this was the first. The water was naggingly familiar, now that the smoke in his throat had cleared enough to taste it. Still, Salgant drank as slowly as he could.

He could not yet bring himself to address the question of hospitality aloud; he set it at the back of his mind to think through. His heart quailed at the thought of those stairs, but he would not allow that to be a factor. He must think of strengthening his position at this bargaining table. Everything he could offer was solely at the discretion of Sauron, who pursued this, as far as Salgant could tell, only for the novelty.

“I am no great moral philosopher, if that is what you seek,” Salgant demurred. “My bent has ever been more to practical matters, I’m afraid.”

It would offend the Maia to refuse that offer of luxury; it would let Salgant better muster his energies to accept. Salgant would seem more agreeable to Sauron’s agenda. (Agreeable! To Sauron’s agenda!)

“Still, I would like to advance my people’s freedom however I may. You mentioned some possibility of… earning such a thing?”

The thought of accepting Sauron’s offer curdled Salgant’s very soul. To leave innocent people behind to suffer and die –  he couldn’t. He hadn’t even been able to do as much for the guilty! No, he would have to make this work somehow.

He allowed himself a smile, a quick flash of pointed teeth and no more. 

“Of course,” the smith leaned intently over his crossed knee. “You need only convince the majority of them that cooperation is in their best interests. The sooner they swear never to take up arms against my Master, to forsake the kings and the cause that led us into these many centuries of war, the sooner they can be released to start a new life for themselves. I do not say that blithely– I know how much has been destroyed, how much must be made anew. But let them know that if they make their peace with us, they will not be alone in the rebuilding. You can do this better than I. They are your countrymen.” 

The elf’s complexion was looking increasingly grey, though his voice grew stronger after each drink. This was surely too long and stressful a negotiation to be had with someone about to fall unconscious in his chair. 

“I will make part of this decision easier for you– let me accompany you to your new room, where you can rest.” He rose and crossed the distance to his guest, bending to offer his arm for support. 

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

Salgant took a deep breath and released it, trying to cudgel his mind into functioning at something like its normal capacity. This… no, nothing like hope, he was too drained for hope, but maybe… maybe potential. A path, a way out. Not for him, but for others. Turgon might not have understood – but Rog would have. Besides, they were both dead. Salgant had ever put the living before the dead, however beloved.

“If you know loyalty and grief, then you must also understand my reluctance,” he said, much more measured now. “Only a day or two after my city is destroyed and my king is killed, and you ask for my service? It’s been said I was cold-hearted and I admit that it’s so, but there is still blood in my veins, not ice.”

The lines of his face softened; it was not a concession, not yet, but it was nearer to one. 

“Of course. You need time. We all do– this will be a difficult period for us all.” 

He refilled the glass a third time, the crystal decanter emptying to its last sparkling drops. Melted snow water from beyond the peaks of Thangorodrim, clearer and less sulfurous than the stuff brought up from around the fortress; he’d had it retrieved specially. It was not what prisoners drank. 

“Perhaps you are correct after all that I do not understand the hearts of the Quendi. We have lived under the same sky for centuries, yet I am not familiar with your needs, your wants.  How could I know better than you what motivates your kind? It is my earnest wish to learn more, to see with your eyes. I will need assistance if I am ever to build a realm for my Master that accommodates us all.” 

…If such a thing is even possible, he thought, once again feeling the enormity of the task ahead, salvaging order from the bloody wreckage of an entire Age.
 It was a strange thing for an immortal Maia, sprung into existence already knowing all he needed for the task intended for him, to realize how much there was still to learn of the world he helped create. Certainly it would be a shame if an entire species had to be eradicated simply to make Melkor’s dream a reality. He hoped to avoid that. It seemed wasteful. 

“As you know, it wasn’t very long ago that we were under prolonged siege ourselves. Our supplies are what you’d expect for the end of a 500 year long campaign… Alas, for the moment I cannot tempt you with more marvelous food and drink than what my captains take, and what is indulgent to an orc may not be at all appetizing to an elf,” he chuckled. “Still, I beg you to accept my accommodations while you consider your answer. Your wounds will do better for resting in a proper bed, with a warm fire and bath… And my lieutenant would not be given a second opportunity to make you take the stairs.” 

An unanticipated survival.

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to at least consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

Salgant hadn’t expected to wake up again. He had spent the start of the battle chasing after Tuor, full of the horrified knowledge that he’d just set off a Kinslaying and ensured the death of at least one friend, but neither a crippled leg nor a terrified palfrey lent themselves to speed, and he’d been cornered with only a few members of the Mole and Wing that he’d shouted into rallying together when the walls began falling and the orcs came for them.

Salgant’s men, such as they were, had kept the orcs busy long enough for Salgant to Sing the creatures out of the courtyard they’d found themselves in. Some had even survived the first Balrog’s appearance, he thought, but Salgant’s concentration had become absolute when the second Balrog joined the struggle. The third had been his undoing entirely, and when Salgant’s voice finally gave out, he had seen no other living beings in the destroyed courtyard. Not that he’d had much time to look before he collapsed.

Waking up in the same battered body, rather than the Halls of Mandos, was not in any future he’d anticipated.

A black-clawed foot kicked the elf in his side. 

“On your feet.” The balrog rumbled, filling the cell with the reek of hot metal. She was small for her kind, but still loomed too huge for the scale of the room, crouching and furled and in obvious discomfort.  “UP, you tub of seal-lard, before I drag you out!” 

Beyond the door waited an escort of orc jailers, eyeing the captive with a mix of curiosity and wariness, shackles and a gag at the ready. 

“One note out of you and you’ll have to answer Sauron in writing, because your tongue will be hanging from a hook on my belt, understand?” she hissed, her breath smoking. “To think a little runt like you held off two of my brothers… If they’d been free to join the battle at the Fountain, Gothmog might still be alive. So give me one excuse to kill you on the way up the stairs, ‘hína, and the lieutenant will need to find himself another prisoner to question.” 

She chuckled, and the outline of her jagged grin glowed like the inside of a furnace. “There are a lot of stairs.” 

___

The Pit of the Iron Hells spiraled miles into the earth, half prison, half mine shaft; its stairway chiseled roughly out of the black rock with no regularity or rails to keep one from tumbling into the endless dark. To climb the stairs from top to bottom would take a man a day or more to reach the surface, if he did not rest or tire. The orcs and other guards had ways of ascending vertically by means of pulleys and lifts, but the prisoners working in the deeps made the climb on foot each day, when they were herded back to their cells. 

It was lucky then that Salgant had been held near the surface in one of the less remote dungeons, or Sauron would have been waiting a long time to begin his interrogation. 

When the balrog dumped the minor lord of Gondolin onto the floor of his chamber he noticed the elf was limping, and wondered if that had been a result of the climb or of a less recent injury. 

“Sit, please,” the maia gestured to a chair, giving the balrog a curt nod of dismissal as his guest oriented himself. “That leg of yours must need a rest.” 

The room he’d chosen to meet the unexpected Song master in was ornate and glittering; its walls lined with the polished obsidian ubiquitous to the upper floors of Angband, its sinister fixtures in the shape of serpents and spiderwebs wrought of gold, garnet eyes seeming to wink in the light of the fire which blazed in a maw-shaped hearth. Despite its somewhat grim decor, it was a luxurious change from the pit below and the fortress outside; elegant and impeccably maintained. 

“Our source of intelligence notified us of two Song masters in Gondolin,” he did not say Maeglin, though there could be no other informer. “We were unaware there was a third.” 

Sauron turned to his guest and captive, his tone neither threatening nor plainly read. “You are Lord Salgant of the House of the Harp. I have not heard of you,” he scrutinized the battered elf, crossing his hands behind his back. “Why have I not heard of you?” 

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to at least consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

Salgant hadn’t expected to wake up again. He had spent the start of the battle chasing after Tuor, full of the horrified knowledge that he’d just set off a Kinslaying and ensured the death of at least one friend, but neither a crippled leg nor a terrified palfrey lent themselves to speed, and he’d been cornered with only a few members of the Mole and Wing that he’d shouted into rallying together when the walls began falling and the orcs came for them.

Salgant’s men, such as they were, had kept the orcs busy long enough for Salgant to Sing the creatures out of the courtyard they’d found themselves in. Some had even survived the first Balrog’s appearance, he thought, but Salgant’s concentration had become absolute when the second Balrog joined the struggle. The third had been his undoing entirely, and when Salgant’s voice finally gave out, he had seen no other living beings in the destroyed courtyard. Not that he’d had much time to look before he collapsed.

Waking up in the same battered body, rather than the Halls of Mandos, was not in any future he’d anticipated.

A black-clawed foot kicked the elf in his side. 

“On your feet.” The balrog rumbled, filling the cell with the reek of hot metal. She was small for her kind, but still loomed too huge for the scale of the room, crouching and furled and in obvious discomfort.  “UP, you tub of seal-lard, before I drag you out!” 

Beyond the door waited an escort of orc jailers, eyeing the captive with a mix of curiosity and wariness, shackles and a gag at the ready. 

“One note out of you and you’ll have to answer Sauron in writing, because your tongue will be hanging from a hook on my belt, understand?” she hissed, her breath smoking. “To think a little runt like you held off two of my brothers… If they’d been free to join the battle at the Fountain, Gothmog might still be alive. So give me one excuse to kill you on the way up the stairs, ‘hína, and the lieutenant will need to find himself another prisoner to question.” 

She chuckled, and the outline of her jagged grin glowed like the inside of a furnace. “There are a lot of stairs.” 

___

The Pit of the Iron Hells spiraled miles into the earth, half prison, half mine shaft; its stairway chiseled roughly out of the black rock with no regularity or rails to keep one from tumbling into the endless dark. To climb the stairs from top to bottom would take a man a day or more to reach the surface, if he did not rest or tire. The orcs and other guards had ways of ascending vertically by means of pulleys and lifts, but the prisoners working in the deeps made the climb on foot each day, when they were herded back to their cells. 

It was lucky then that Salgant had been held near the surface in one of the less remote dungeons, or Sauron would have been waiting a long time to begin his interrogation. 

When the balrog dumped the minor lord of Gondolin onto the floor of his chamber he noticed the elf was limping, and wondered if that had been a result of the climb or of a less recent injury. 

“Sit, please,” the maia gestured to a chair, giving the balrog a curt nod of dismissal as his guest oriented himself. “That leg of yours must need a rest.” 

The room he’d chosen to meet the unexpected Song master in was ornate and glittering; its walls lined with the polished obsidian ubiquitous to the upper floors of Angband, its sinister fixtures in the shape of serpents and spiderwebs wrought of gold, garnet eyes seeming to wink in the light of the fire which blazed in a maw-shaped hearth. Despite its somewhat grim decor, it was a luxurious change from the pit below and the fortress outside; elegant and impeccably maintained. 

“Our source of intelligence notified us of two Song masters in Gondolin,” he did not say Maeglin, though there could be no other informer. “We were unaware there was a third.” 

Sauron turned to his guest and captive, his tone neither threatening nor plainly read. “You are Lord Salgant of the House of the Harp. I have not heard of you,” he scrutinized the battered elf, crossing his hands behind his back. “Why have I not heard of you?” 

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

Salgant hadn’t expected to wake up again. He had spent the start of the battle chasing after Tuor, full of the horrified knowledge that he’d just set off a Kinslaying and ensured the death of at least one friend, but neither a crippled leg nor a terrified palfrey lent themselves to speed, and he’d been cornered with only a few members of the Mole and Wing that he’d shouted into rallying together when the walls began falling and the orcs came for them.

Salgant’s men, such as they were, had kept the orcs busy long enough for Salgant to Sing the creatures out of the courtyard they’d found themselves in. Some had even survived the first Balrog’s appearance, he thought, but Salgant’s concentration had become absolute when the second Balrog joined the struggle. The third had been his undoing entirely, and when Salgant’s voice finally gave out, he had seen no other living beings in the destroyed courtyard. Not that he’d had much time to look before he collapsed.

Waking up in the same battered body, rather than the Halls of Mandos, was not in any future he’d anticipated.

A black-clawed foot kicked the elf in his side. 

“On your feet.” The balrog rumbled, filling the cell with the reek of hot metal. She was small for her kind, but still loomed too huge for the scale of the room, crouching and furled and in obvious discomfort.  “UP, you tub of seal-lard, before I drag you out!” 

Beyond the door waited an escort of orc jailers, eyeing the captive with a mix of curiosity and wariness, shackles and a gag at the ready. 

“One note out of you and you’ll have to answer Sauron in writing, because your tongue will be hanging from a hook on my belt, understand?” she hissed, her breath smoking. “To think a little runt like you held off two of my brothers… If they’d been free to join the battle at the Fountain, Gothmog might still be alive. So give me one excuse to kill you on the way up the stairs, ‘hína, and the lieutenant will need to find himself another prisoner to question.” 

She chuckled, and the outline of her jagged grin glowed like the inside of a furnace. “There are a lot of stairs.” 

___

The Pit of the Iron Hells spiraled miles into the earth, half prison, half mine shaft; its stairway chiseled roughly out of the black rock with no regularity or rails to keep one from tumbling into the endless dark. To climb the stairs from top to bottom would take a man a day or more to reach the surface, if he did not rest or tire. The orcs and other guards had ways of ascending vertically by means of pulleys and lifts, but the prisoners working in the deeps made the climb on foot each day, when they were herded back to their cells. 

It was lucky then that Salgant had been held near the surface in one of the less remote dungeons, or Sauron would have been waiting a long time to begin his interrogation. 

When the balrog dumped the minor lord of Gondolin onto the floor of his chamber he noticed the elf was limping, and wondered if that had been a result of the climb or of a less recent injury. 

“Sit, please,” the maia gestured to a chair, giving the balrog a curt nod of dismissal as his guest oriented himself. “That leg of yours must need a rest.” 

The room he’d chosen to meet the unexpected Song master in was ornate and glittering; its walls lined with the polished obsidian ubiquitous to the upper floors of Angband, its sinister fixtures in the shape of serpents and spiderwebs wrought of gold, garnet eyes seeming to wink in the light of the fire which blazed in a maw-shaped hearth. Despite its somewhat grim decor, it was a luxurious change from the pit below and the fortress outside; elegant and impeccably maintained. 

“Our source of intelligence notified us of two Song masters in Gondolin,” he did not say Maeglin, though there could be no other informer. “We were unaware there was a third.” 

Sauron turned to his guest and captive, his tone neither threatening nor plainly read. “You are Lord Salgant of the House of the Harp. I have not heard of you,” he scrutinized the battered elf, crossing his hands behind his back. “Why have I not heard of you?” 

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