Slight Air and Purging Fire by mainecoon

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Chapter 13

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Narvi went in first.

This was how it had to be. Celebrimbor wished so dearly to take the burden from her, but she would not hear of it. She stepped into the darkness with her head held high, the first dwarf to enter the Dwarrowdelf in nearly a thousand years.

It was ravaged, but recognizable – and not only by sight. Celebrimbor had never possessed the stone-sense, but now the low hum of rock resonated through his body, and he knew, he knew, that it was slate and granite, felt thick veins of silver and mithril pulsing beneath the surface, and the sparkle of gems like the showers of a firework in between. It called to him in a powerful voice, beckoning him to go deeper, and Narvi whipped around and grabbed his arm before she remembered that her fingers could not touch.

What is this?, she demanded, and her eyes were alight in the darkness. I sense the essence of the Mountain! It cannot be. I lost it in death.

“I feel it too, though I should not,” said Celebrimbor, and they stared at each other for a moment until Maglor shook his head.

“I sense nothing of the kind,” he said. “Only darkness and danger. This land has seen death, and sees it still.”

Narvi nodded, looked from one to the other, then turned abruptly and walked ahead.

The entrance chamber had been plain even in their day, unadorned by gems and precious metals. However it had been planned and constructed under Narvi’s supervision, which meant dwarven stonework at its finest. There had been little for the orcs to scratch off the walls and carry away. In the days of Khazad-Dûm’s glory it had been bustling with strangers, and thus it was constructed to impress with skill rather than opulence. The tunnel that led into the lower levels was unchanged, except for the stuffy smell of ancient air.

Narvi strode forward, distant and silent, and Celebrimbor lengthened his pace to keep up with her. His torch, hastily constructed with the meagre means they had, threw flickering patches of orange against the black walls. Behind him, Maglor kept close but said nothing.

A maze of darkness now lay where once had been a kingdom illuminated by crystal lamps. But worse than that was the silence. Here, in the outskirts of the realm, had rung a cacophony of voices, laughter, heavy footsteps, the metal-on-metal of soldiers walking in armour. Closer towards the heart of Khazad-Dûm, there had been music: the drone of deep voices in vast halls, harp notes pearling like cool drops of sound among merry fiddles and bold trumpets that filled the mountain with song and dance. And deeper still, in the forges, the never-ceasing work of miners and artisans had echoed through the depths.

Now there was nothing except the rustle of bats and the steady drip of water, unchanged for a millennium. No voices, no songs, no hammers on mithril.

For many hours they walked the broad, comfortable tunnels that had been public spaces and accessible to elven visitors. A number of doorways opened on both sides, and eventually Narvi disappeared into one of them, a narrow, half-hidden passage where two dwarves - or elves - could not walk abreast. Celebrimbor and Maglor ducked to follow her into a low tunnel.

We must avoid the direct way.

Narvi’s voice was deeper than usual; deeper, but also louder, and her form flared brighter than before. All the time she had spoken little and rarely looked back at her companions. Celebrimbor could only guess that she was purposefully guarding her feelings, for the force of her grief would all but make the mountain crumble around them.

“I trust your guidance,” said Celebrimbor, though he knew a good part of Khazad-Dûm himself. To hide from the orcs, they would have to go deeper.

Not so deep that they would disturb what lurked near the roots of the mountain. Celebrimbor had no desire to imitate Fëanor quite so literally.

“How long will we be in here?” Maglor’s face appeared narrow and pale in the torchlight. His ears twitched constantly. Once again, Celebrimbor thought with a flicker of amusement, his uncle had not questioned the route until they had gone too far to turn back.

It would be three days, with neither of you needing much rest. But as it is, we will have to take detours, so I’m counting on five. Narvi threw a glance over her shoulder. Even I do not know every tunnel, nor what was altered after my time, but for my trade I needed to be familiar with all the basic maps. If we are lucky, the orcs will never guess that we were here.

“Between Maglor and myself you’re stuck with the unluckiest pair in all Arda,” Celebrimbor pointed out. Maglor snorted. Narvi hesitated for a moment to touch Celebrimbor's arm with her bright, transparent hand.

On they went, through a maze of passages and caves that had once been lodging quarters and weapon chambers. Some areas were unchanged, except that they had been plundered, while elsewhere wide fissures split the rock: without the dim torchlight and the soft glow of Narvi’s ghostly form, both elves would have tumbled to their deaths before long. For hours they went through the section of Khazad-Dûm that was mostly reserved for private homesteads, though there was a communal dining hall for those who wished to take their meal in company - which had generally involved song, drink, argument, and a large amount of ruckus.

Celebrimbor recognized the tunnels where Narvi’s family had lived. Not far beyond lay the quarters she had built for him as a wedding gift. As he walked along the silent passage, Celebrimbor longed to turn around the familiar corner, the one with a sprinkle of silver on the side that looked like an axe; he would turn left twice, then right, and stand before a wall of polished rock. He would draw secret runes on silver-streaked granite, and the wall would slide open; and he would walk straight past the table where ruby-set goblets gathered dust because cleaning them meant household work, step over the clutter of tools and blueprints that all but obscured the jeweled mosaics on the floor, and enter their private chamber of starlight. The walls and ceiling of this room were sprinkled with fluorescent crystals, so while he rested on the fur blankets beneath, he could study the constellations: and constellations there were, for Narvi had set them to match the night sky in Midsummer, when they had first met. She would stretch out beside him, heavy and solid and alive , and run a strong hand across his chest, tangle her fingers in his braids, and he would reach out to undo the laces of her…

Leave it, snapped Narvi.

So we could make love under the stars, he finished his thought, loudly and with emphasis. Narvi turned away and walked down a tunnel that gave their quarters an even wider berth. It took him a moment to realize that she should not have heard him, not even while his thoughts were directed at her. The minds of the Khazad were not made for ósanwe.

But Narvi was no living Khazad, and her powers were growing.

The lodging quarters lay in ruin: bronze inlays were chiseled off the walls, mosaics destroyed, nothing that could be carried away had been left behind. The dining hall loomed large and empty, even the benches and tables were gone. But perhaps somewhere beyond the destruction their chambers endured. If the doors were closed, no orc could force them open.

For two days they went on without incident. Celebrimbor had long lost all sense of direction, but the stone-sense remained with him as they trudged along steep staircases and endless, narrow tunnels, deeper and deeper into the caves. The mines of Khazad-Dûm were not made for elves, were too low and too narrow and too confined, and if he had not minded so much before - before -, well, at the time he had not known the other darkness. The one that smelled of corpses and blood, where he was chained to the wall, straining his ears for the clang of iron-plated boots, praying each time he heard them that they would pass him by - but prayers had never helped those of his line. And sometimes there had been no footsteps to serve as a warning. He had always approached without a sound. Those times had been the worst.

There were foul things in this darkness here, too, and he did strain his ears for them, painfully aware of his own soft footfalls. But they did not know where to find him, not yet. He did not sleep; it was as well that they needed little rest. He was not sure what awaited him in his dreams, Sauron’s torture chambers or the seductive call of the Rings, but he dreaded both equally.

Narvi thrived here, flaring bright and humming with power. Celebrimbor could feel her below the surface of his own mind, and she never faltered in her choice of direction. Maglor was pale and uncomfortable and hardly spoke at all.

Time was difficult to measure, but it had to be around noon on the third day when the cramped tunnels they had wandered opened into a large cavern. It was so wide that their light did not reach the walls, nor the ceiling, but their footsteps echoed far and high. From somewhere near came the soft ripple of running water. Objects grew out of the darkness whenever the round, flickering halos of torchlight were near enough to touch them: giant furnaces filled with ancient ash, wide anvils and workbenches, made for dozens of craftspeople to work in rows; quenching basins, empty now, for the water in them had long evaporated. Orcs had plundered the place, but a few tools lay strewn about, briefly illuminated by the passing torches: here a pair of tongs, there a tiny chisel, the remnants of a leather strap, a parchment with numbers on it. Celebrimbor and Maglor were careful not to disturb these relics.

Behold, said Narvi. Her voice was hollow and carried its own echo. Behold, the mithril forges of Khazad-Dûm!

Here was the sanctum of dwarven craftsmanship. No elf had ever been allowed to enter, not even Celebrimbor.

Narvi walked straight into the darkness, then halted abruptly. It seemed to be a deliberate position; the center of the room, perhaps. She raised both hands and began to sing.

Her voice was deep and strong and ancient, and in the vast chamber it broke into a cascade of echoes. Celebrimbor recognized a few Khuzdul words, but he could not understand their meaning. This chant was unlike anything he had ever heard before: set in an entirely foreign tonality, oddly repetitive, vibrating with power. It was the song of the earth itself, of stone and metal and creation. Maglor gripped Celebrimbor’s arm so tightly that it hurt.

It was not a song meant for elven ears. No outsider had ever been allowed to witness the sacred ceremonies of the Khazad. This was a prayer.

Long moments passed when the song had ended in a deep hum, a sound that drifted into the stone and made it vibrate softly in resonance. While Celebrimbor shook himself out of his awe and wonder how such a thing was even possible, Narvi walked on without another word. Celebrimbor followed her swiftly when she disappeared through an ornate archway. He had to pull Maglor along; his uncle’s eyes were wide and mesmerized. He seemed not entirely lucid.

They were forced to gather their wits soon enough.

On the other side of the mithril forges the style of the caverns changed. Here were huge halls used for storage, community workshops for metallurgy and jewelry, tunnels wide enough for waggons on iron rails to be drawn to the entrance of the Northern mines: less ornate than the lodgings quarters, to speak nothing of the royal halls, but designed with dwarven ingenuity. For an hour or more Narvi led them through this section. They were walking along a broad, roughly hewn passage when Celebrimbor’s ears caught the sounds he had been dreading to hear. Shouts, in the distance; drums, not far off and drawing closer. They seemed to be coming from both sides.

Narvi halted and flung out a transparent hand.

Celebrimbor stopped in his tracks. Maglor, who had moved silently behind him, cocked his head and frowned.

“They must have noticed the surge of power in the mithril forge,” he whispered.

Narvi shot him an angry look. Are you saying that this is my fault?

“You probably alerted them to our presence. Even if they couldn’t hear you, they must have felt something. Now they’re searching the entire section.” Maglor drew his sword with a very soft scrape. The blade was radiating blue light, brighter in Khazad-Dûm’s darkness than Celebrimbor had seen it before. With a stab of longing he realized that it had to be his father’s work. “Let us hope that Aulë heard your prayers.”

Narvi huffed, but when Celebrimbor met her eyes, they were full of doubt. He shook his head briefly.

“He’s only honest with you, as you are with him,” he muttered, which was entirely useless, for Maglor could hear him anyway. “You did right to honour your traditions. There are things that should not be concealed.”

She gave him a wry smile and moved very close to his side. The noises before them had grown loud, and flickering tongues of light danced in the tunnel ahead of them. There was nowhere to flee.

You did nothing wrong, he thought resolutely, in case she could hear him. Even if he wished desperately that she had kept quiet, he banished the thought to the back of his mind.

They would need Aulë’s blessing to survive this.

The stench that accompanied the orc horde almost made Celebrimbor retch. It reeked of pain and humiliation and death. He dropped his torch, for the orcs carried enough of those, and as he drew his blades he fought down the sickness, the vivid sensations of blades cutting through his bones while his throat was raw from screaming.

Not now. He had never heard Narvi’s voice so close, so powerful inside his own mind, and it pushed the memories away. Hold on.

There was nothing else he could do. The shouting broke into howls of triumph when the first orcs caught sight of them. They had no place to hide.

Celebrimbor clutched his blades. The orcs were too many, and they were just three. Narvi’s form blazed like ithildin beside him; she was strong, but her powers worked best against the unseen. Maglor looked strangely relaxed, his sword held loosely in his right hand, watching the scene with half-lidded eyes.

Only his uncle possessed the necessary fighting skills to deal with a threat of this magnitude. Celebrimbor was a capable warrior, but his soul was made to create, not to destroy. He did not excel at killing. And this time, should they be captured again, there would be no escape. Khazad-Dûm was firmly in orcish hands.

“Maglor,” Celebrimbor pleaded as the orcs approached, now muttering and leering among themselves. “Don’t let them take me alive.”

Maglor did not turn his gaze from the enemy. “I will do what I must,” he said evenly, and for the first time Celebrimbor was grateful to have a kinslayer at his side. Narvi’s light flickered.

If we lose, she urged, promise me that you will allow yourselves to heal. Go to Valinor and find your family. Both of you.

“But without you – .” Celebrimbor broke off when he met her eyes, dark and earnest and pleading. It was not like Narvi to plead. If this was the last wish he could fulfil for her, then so be it.

“I will, if I can,” he promised, and and a fleeting smile crossed her face. Pain and acceptance he read in it. From the beginning they had known that their ultimate fates would be separate, but this time they could have a proper farewell. Maglor’s mouth twisted unhappily, but he said nothing.

From somewhere in the orc horde came a harsh command, and the enemies were upon them.

Later Celebrimbor could not say how it had happened. He had just raised his blades, focusing on the perfectly balanced weight in his hands, when -

when a white flame surged through him and took control of his body and thoughts. It was fierce, this spirit of battle and fire, and not afraid. He passed one of his swords to Maglor, because he did not need it: he fought with one, only the left, and his foes knew to fear it. Maglor spared him a puzzled glance, and then his eyes lit up with a bright spark. But there was no more time to speak.

Instead they charged into the fray.

His blade cleaved armour and bone with the untamed rage of millennia. Not a single blow slipped past his defenses. Maglor called his name, his true name, a strange sound that was both a laugh and a scream, and he responded in wild joy, for he had been wordless for so long. ‘Makalaurë,’ he shouted, and it was a blessing and a promise and a battle cry. The enemies shrunk back before his fury and skill and the blinding light that reflected on his sword and on their grimy weapons - vermin they were, degenerated cave creatures, dangerous only through their numbers. Makalaurë fought at his side as he had done so often, graceful and deadly with his double blades and his lightning-quick wit. But this time the blood on their swords was black and not red, and maybe, just maybe, Aulë would watch them today and remember that they had once been more than murderers.

The orcs faltered, taken by surprise when their hopelessly outnumbered prey slaughtered a path right through their midst. The dwarf ghost called for Celebrimbor, gleaming like moonlight as she hurried ahead. ‘Mad elves! Come forward! Come forward!’, she roared, and Maglor turned to run after her and gestured for him to follow.

War cries rose behind them, but the enemies lost ground. The tunnel widened into another cave, and Narvi’s ghostly light illuminated a deep chasm that split the floor from one side to the other. The elves rushed across a short, wide bridge, and had reached a wall with several archways when their enemies emerged from the tunnel. Narvi looked around wildly, unsure which way to turn. But Maglor stood tall and raised his voice, and the power of his song shattered the rock that held the bridge, and the ceiling opened in long, jagged cracks before it crashed and buried every orc beneath. When the dust settled, there were no more war cries. Only the drums continued, muted, further in the distance.

Narvi stood still for a moment, looking first at the fallen rock, then from one companion to the other. Her eyes lingered long on the flaring light that radiated from Celebrimbor’s form.

‘I don’t know who you are,’ she said roughly, ‘but thank you.’

With that she turned away and led them through one of the archways, down a long, spiralling staircase, deeper into the darkness. Only their own light was left to them now. At the foot of the stairs they came to a halt in a damp chamber that was filled with the stink of rotting algae. Here Maedhros Fëanorion faced his last living brother, who was alive and unhurt but so, so tired.

Too many things he ached to say, now that he could form words: ‘I thought you would follow me’ and ‘you have suffered enough’ and ‘I always listen when you speak to me’, but there was no time for it all. He had already lingered far too long in his nephew’s body, and Celebrimbor, who had left his hröa once before, was threatening to slip away. ‘There is hope for us now, Káno,’ said Maedhros and withdrew.

Celebrimbor stumbled and held onto a boulder when the white fire left him. Sickness overcame him, and he fought the urge to empty his stomach and waste what little food they had. When he looked up he found Maglor staring at him, white-faced, with very bright eyes.

"Nelyo," his uncle whispered. "Nelyo."

He stepped close and cradled Celebrimbor's face in his thin hands, looked him in the eye, searching, desperate. Celebrimbor wanted to weep for him, for him and for the lost soul who had shared his mind and body long enough to save their lives. He shook his head, and Maglor turned away. Tears were running freely down his cheeks, glistening in Narvi’s light.

"He is still here,” Celebrimbor said gently. “He is always with you.”

“I know,” said Maglor, and then he fell silent for a long while.

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Chapter End Notes

Once again Papertigress' betaing eye found all the flaws in my action scene. Thanks for that!