Maps by grey_gazania

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Chapter 9: Caranthir

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My brother dreamed again that night, dreamed of bones and shadows, of claws like scalpels and mouths full of bloody teeth. I tried to draw the dream from his mind — I'd be damned before I let my brother suffer through this alone — but he still woke up screaming. This time it was Findekáno and I who calmed him, holding our arms around him as he trembled and wept in our combined embrace. "Don't leave me in the dark," he pleaded, though the room was lit by several candles. "Don't leave me here alone."

 

"Never," Findekáno said, and I rested my head against Maitimo's and thought light, thought love, thought safe.

 

It took nearly an hour for him to calm down enough that he could go back to sleep, but it was a fitful sleep, and when he woke at dawn I saw that his eyes had grown even more sunken and shadowed — something I hadn't thought was possible.

 

Almarë had other patients to tend to, and Nolofinwë had asked for Findekáno's help with some matter or other. I took advantage of the situation to talk to my brother alone. I perched on the edge of his bed, positioning myself so I could reach both his hand and his head, which was covered in a light fuzz of copper-colored stubble. "Your hair's starting to grow back," I said.

 

"Hm," he said, sounding tired.

 

"Do you want me to go?" I asked. "You could sleep a little more."

 

"No, stay," he said. "I don't want to be alone."

 

"Well, good," I said. "I want to talk to you, and Findekáno's been very reluctant to leave your side."

 

I didn't mean it as a complaint, but it must have come out sounding like one, because Maitimo snapped, "Findekáno can stay whenever he likes. He came for me. None of you did."

 

I flinched. Silence stretched between us, one, two, three, until he sank back against the pillows. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "That wasn't fair."

 

"It's the truth," I said, even though it hurt to admit it. "The truth doesn't have to be fair."

 

He shook his head. "I think the real truth is that you would not have been able to do what Káno did. Even if you had found me, I don't think that Manwë would have answered any prayer from a son of Fëanáro."

 

"I don't think I would have bothered to pray," I said honestly. I'd never been particularly devout.

 

He squeezed my hand. For the first time, I could feel real pressure behind it; his strength was returning, slowly but surely. "But you looked for me," he said. "I could feel it, sometimes."

 

I nodded. "I needed to know whether you lived."

 

"Did you tell the others any of what you saw?"

 

"No," I said. "Only that I could feel in my heart that you were alive."

 

"Keep it that way."

 

"Have I ever repeated anything you've shared in confidence?" I said. "You always kept my secrets. I'll always keep yours." Not that I'd shared so many with him after I married; my wife had become my confidante. But when I was a child, Maitimo had always been the person I'd gone to when I was worried or frightened or hurt, and he'd never betrayed me. I owed him the same.

 

"My secrets now are too terrible to share," he said sadly.

 

I looked away, because I didn't think I could bear to see the look on his face when I said, "You might not have as much choice in that as you think."

 

"What do you mean?" he asked, his tightly coiled anxiety audible in his voice.

 

"I saw some of your dreams last night," I admitted. "I wasn't looking for them, I swear, but they were bleeding out of you. You're much more…much more open than you used to be, and I don't think it's by choice."

 

I risked a glance at him and saw that he'd gone pale and grey. "Moringotto forced his way into my mind," he said in a hoarse whisper. "Found all my secrets and used them to torment me. I thought— I thought that now that I was safe, I would be able to regain control."

 

"You still can. Let me help you," I said. "Whatever happened, whatever he did to you or forced you to do… You're still my brother. I know that in my heart, too. And a bad dream shared is a bad dream halved," I added, repeating what he'd always told me after my own childhood nightmares.

 

That got a wan smile out of him. "Clever, little brother," he said. "But I don't want to burden you with pain you cannot bear."

 

"I'll bear whatever you need me to bear."

 

He looked at me, his eyes glittering strangely in their sunken sockets. "Will you?" he asked.

 

I nodded. "Test me, if you want to," I said. I was afraid of what he might share, but he needed this. He needed someone to confide in so that he wouldn't suffer alone.

 

"What if I told you that I think I am going mad?"

 

"I'd ask you why you think that."

 

Quietly, he said, "I can feel my hand, the one Káno cut off. It pains me."

 

I shook my head. "That's not madness. Almarë said that might happen, remember?" She'd given him several doses of poppy over the past few days; maybe he'd forgotten some of what he'd been told.

 

"Let me finish, Moryo," he said, using my childhood nickname. "It pains me, and you're correct: Almarë said that might happen. But she never said anything about…" He trailed off, swallowed nervously, and then, voice soft, said, "She never said anything about me feeling another hand."

 

"Like you have three hands?" I asked. That made absolutely no sense at all.

 

He shook his head. "No. Another hand on mine. Touching it."

 

That made a little more sense, and I rested my chin in my hand, thinking hard. "I don't think you're mad," I finally said. "Atto was mad." It was the first time I'd said as much aloud, and I'd never have dared say it in front of anyone but Maitimo.

 

"Atto believed in things that weren't true. How is this any different?"

 

"Hear me out," I said. "Findekáno had to leave your— your hand behind, right?" This was hard to talk about, and my theory was a little shaky, but it made more sense to me than the idea of Maitimo losing his sanity. "What if," I asked, "what if Moringotto found it, and he's using it to torment you further? I mean, it is a part of you, even if it's not…you know. Attached."

 

He was silent for a long, long time. "That seems more plausible than I would like it to be," he finally said. "Thank you. It did help to share that."

 

"You're my brother," I said. "I'll listen to anything you need to say and keep it secret. I promise."