All Hues and Honeys by Dawn Felagund

The Secret Door

Celebrimbor learns lessons about magic. A double drabble for the IFD/Meet & Greet instadrabbling. The prompts were "passwords/secret codes" and "necessary cruelty."

Tyleperinquar wove the door into his room in Nargothrond with sorcery, coaxing and convincing each iota of wood that it was obdurate as stone until it was—it was stone. Fingers trailing the wall, he could detect no crack or clue.

The wood was easily talked down to plain wood and a copper knob again. The spell had worked.

He spent his day, content that his father, his uncle, no one could discover the secrets he kept there. Returning, he placed his hand to the wall and—

Fire!

Flesh transformed to blood and weeping, he clutched the burned hand to his chest. The silence of the hall—he hadn't so much as gasped—eased aside for low laughter.

"Train a thing to conviction and it may surpass your intentions." His father's voice oozed from the shadows. He passed fingers over his son's ruined palm and restored it to working order. But no matter how Tyelperinquar begged, he would not restore the door to wood or even cold stone.

"This is a lesson all who would craft must learn," his father said.

Tyelperinquar tried, but the stone hovered on the edge of molten and would not be calmed.

His secrets were lost behind fire.

Chapter End Notes

Tyelperinquar = Celebrimbor