Bringing Trouble to Barad-dur by Aiwen

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A New Hope

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or: A Chalk-Fea called Celebrian.

When Celebrimbor next visited the prisoners, he was startled to find Finrod tied up and bandaged. He picked up the chalk to ask them what was going on, and everybody began talking at once. Calm down, he wrote. Duilin, would you please tell me what happened?

A long while later, Celebrimbor had gathered the gist of what was going on, and agreed that they couldn't kill Finrod. Celebrimbor also insisted on talking to Finrod. Your actions disgrace an honourable name. Why did you do it?

"Hiding like this can never work," said Finrod. "Our only hope is cooperation with the Dark Lord. You can't even get us out, and we cannot stay down here forever."

"I didn't defy Sauron's torturers only to walk back into his hands of my own free will," said Duilin.

"You wretched little fink!" said Mithwen.

Cooperation doesn't work, wrote Celebrimbor. He'll only ask you something else you cannot give the answer to without betraying everything you ever believed in.

"Are you speaking from personal experience here?" asked Duilin.

Sort of. Mostly.

"Why do you ask of us what you did not do yourself?" asked Finrod.

Because I'd rather you learned from my mistakes, than from making them yourself and learning the consequences the hard way.

"Did the Valar send you here as punishment?" asked Duilin.

I don't think so. They said I'd already repented of that particular error before I had ever arrived in Mandos. I think I was sent because I was refusing to be reborn, and so was still there when they needed a volunteer.

"Why were you refusing rebirth?" asked Ioreth.

"Yes, that's foolish," said Mithwen.

I'd messed up rather badly last time I was alive and I was afraid that I'd do it again.

"But you'd be in Valinor, so how would you have the opportunity to mess up?" asked a short elf with reddish hair named Caredhel.

I don't know, but some of my relatives managed handily enough.

"You aren't Maeglin are you?" asked Damrod, looking rather nervous.

No! I would never betray my people like that - not to mention the elleth Maeglin claimed to love - if he really loved Idril, he would have died rather than betray her, never mind that she'd married someone else! I've met him in Mandos and he still hasn't repented - why he bothered answering Namo's call instead of staying with Morgoth I will never know. But we have gotten very far from the original topic here: what are we to do with Finrod?

"I think we're going to have to keep him tied up and watch him every second," said Duilin, "since we've all agreed we can kill him and we certainly can't let him go."

Good decision, wrote Celebrimbor.

"Are you Maedhros?" asked Caredhel.

"Are you Finrod?" asked Ioreth.

"Finrod didn't tell Sauron anything, silly!" said Mithwen, elbowing Ioreth in the ribs.

"He wants too, though," said someone Celebrimbor couldn't see.

"Not this Finrod, Finrod the king of Nargothrond, friend of men and miscellaneous other titles I don't remember," said Caredhel, glaring. After that, several other people began speaking over top of each other and Celebrimbor was no longer sure who was saying what.

"Are you Beren?"

"He said he was an elf."

"Are you Celebrimbor?"

"Are you Turgon, Glorfindel, Gil-galad, Ecthelion, Feanor, Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Curufin, Caranthir, or Figwit?"

"None of them got taken to Angband except Maedhros, and I mentioned him earlier." said Caredhel. "You made Figwit up. It's neither Sindarin nor Quenya, and I'm fairly certain it isn't one of the Silvan languages either."

"Are you Celebrian?"

Celebrimbor sputtered. No comment, he wrote.

"Must be Celebrian." Several people nodded their heads in agreement. Celebrimbor shook his incoroporeal head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

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Gil-galad looked up from the documents he'd been reading when the messenger came walking down the hall and turned up the stairs towards where Sauron was closeted with the Palantir. Gil-galad floated up and followed him, hoping to find something more useful for embarrassing Sauron than the tax records of North Harad. The messenger had a bag with him that looked almost like it contained fabric. Suspiciously heavy fabric, and what might be the shape of a sheathed dagger. Gil-galad frowned, but continued to watch. He had an odd feeling that this might be important.

Sauron looked up as the orc entered with an expression somewhere between resigned and irritated. "What have you there?" he asked the the orc.

"Lord Zigur," said the orc, "I am Captain Shagrat of Cirith Ungol. My troops caught a spy sniffing around Cirith Ungol. It carried very interesting equipment that I thought I should bring to your attention personally." He opened the bag and spilled the contents out onto the Palantir table. The orc darted a look at the huge globe, but looked down quickly at the contents of the bag. There was indeed a dagger that looked suspiciously of Numenorean make, but there was also a child-size camouflage cloak of Lorien and... Gil-galad's eyes widened.

What in Arda is that doing there? Not that I've been able to fit into it since Balar, but still... He stared at the tiny mithril corselet that he had worn during the flight to Eglarest and in the fighting in which Eglarest had fallen. It had saved his life then. Finrod had asked the dwarves to make it long before the Feanorians had forced him out to his death in the Tol-in-Guarhoth, though what had prompted him Gil-galad had never known.

Sauron moved to stare at and picked up the mithril corselet, holding it dangling and turning it this way and that. He examined the dagger, and then the cloak. Abruptly, he turned back to Shagrat. "I want to see this spy," he said.

"Lord Zigur, I... He had an ally, and they scarpered when Gorbag tried to pinch the mail shirt."

"And you did not send someone after them?"

"My lord, we couldn't, for Gorbag's people - the traitors - attacked us and we were too busy fighting them- almost all of us died. I was wounded" the orc held up a crudely bandaged arm, "and I assumed it was to better to bring you the loot than to lose everything."

Sauron looked at Shagrat through slitted eyes and drummed his fingers on the table. "So," he said eventually, "describe this spy. In detail."

The orc frowned. "He had been caught by Shelob and was out cold when we found him. He was really short, but he wasn't a dwarf because he was too skinny and he didn't have a beard. He didn't have the cruel eyes of the Elves, and tarks don't have pointed ears and they don't go barefoot. His feet were hairy, too. Weird."

"Interesting," said Sauron. "What of his accomplice?"

"I think, my Lord, that the spy we caught was more the accomplice than the one that got away. I fought the other and barely got away. He had an elf sword, was tall and wrapped in a dark cloak of shadow. Some weird elf-sorcery, probably."

Sauron's eyebrows rose, and he leaned back in the chair, deep in thought.

Gil-galad's mind raced. Hobbits... hobbits had carried the One Ring to Rivendell. Now there appeared to be at least one hobbit on the borders of Mordor. Was it possible that he still had the Ring? If so, why wasn't it here? Perhaps the hobbit's friend was carrying it. If the tall friend wasn't a hobbit himself... strange effects that the orcs interpreted as elf-sorcery could potentially be caused by the Ring if what he knew of the effects of Rings of Power was correct. He should ask Celebrimbor about that. He'd never had the chance to find out personally since using Narya when Sauron had the One Ring would have been criminal folly.

If the other hobbit had the Ring the only sensible reason for him to take it here was to throw it in Mt. Doom - which would explain why the Valar wanted Sauron distracted and why there was a point to him and Celebrimbor being here at all!

But what of Aragorn and his behavior? Could he have a different Ring? Or perhaps no Ring at all, simply the courage and charisma of the House of Elendil? Elendil had needed no Ring.

He couldn't know, not for sure, but he could hope. And now that he had some idea of what was going on he had a better idea of what was needed to distract Sauron. Sauron needed to be distracted from the hobbit's quest.

Perhaps his strategy of confusing and causing damage to Sauron's battle plans was not actually useful save in as much as it wasted Sauron's time, and of course saved lives. But to stop now might give Sauron a clue of what was really happening, which was the last thing Gil-galad wanted. He should pretend that this little spy was of no importance whatever. Still, there was plenty of scope for driving Sauron crazy - it wasn't as if Sauron needed much help there.

For now, he'd better watch Sauron and make sure he didn't come up with any of the same things Gil-galad had just thought up. After a minute or two, Sauron dismissed the orc captain. For the next 15 minutes Sauron sat there, fingering the mithril corselet occasionally, and thinking thoughts the contents of whcih Gil-galad had no clue.

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Chapter End Notes

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A/N 1: Celebrimbor may be being a bit hard on himself in this chapter. What happened is that under torture he revealed to Sauron the location of the Seven Dwarf Rings, but died rather than reveal where the Three Elf Rings were. In some versions of the legendarium and most fanfiction, Celebrimbor was in love with Galadriel, despite her being married to Celeborn. This is why he is reacting to Maeglin with if he really loved her, he would have died rather than betray her, never mind that she'd married someone else! here.

A/N 3: How Gil-galad's childhood mailshirt got into the hoard of the King Under the Mountain I do not know. But there's only so many little elvish princes it could have been made for without Thranduil recognising it.