Bringing Trouble to Barad-dur by Aiwen

Sauron Strikes Back

Just over an hour later, Gil-galad and Celebrimbor left the records room. Behind them, smoke poured out the half-open door. Both archivists had finally stopped trying to save as many records as they could and were sitting beside the door coughing while other people tried to come up with enough water to douse the fire, stepping over and around the archivists as they did so, and occasionally stepping on rescued records despite the archivists' frantic gestures.

Celebrimbor smiled at Gil-galad. "More than half the records destroyed, and no one killed. Not bad for a couple of fea."

"Not bad at all," said Gil-galad. "Although I do wonder what Sauron's reaction will be if we push him too far..."

"He can't get at us while we're in this state," said Celebrimbor.

"He doesn't need to get at us directly," said Gil-galad.

Just then a hush fell as a familiar black cloaked figure walked into the hallway. Everyone moved to the sides, and he walked through their midst to the door of the records room. "Gnash kru" said Sauron and the fire within the room died. He walked in, and the two fea followed behind to watch his reaction.

Sauron walked to the center of the room, and then turned around slowly, taking in the ruined scrolls and books, the smoke-smeared windows, the fallen bookshelf in the far corner and the pathetic attempts at dousing everything with water. He walked to the window and opened it, letting the smoke pour out.

Then he spoke. "I know you are here, and you will regret this very shortly." With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

He stopped at the door. Most of the assorted orcs and Men had made themselves scarce, but the archivists were still sitting on the floor wheezing. "How came you to allow your charge to be thus destroyed?" Sauron demanded, towering over the two.

"We have no excuse, Lord Zigur," the one on the right said, staring fixedly at the floor and shaking visibly.

"But," squeaked the one on the left, then fell silent.

"You were saying?" said Sauron politely.

"It was the invisible ghosts...the books just started picking themselves up, falling down and flinging themselves at us. We brought no flame nor allowed any to be brought in. That fire was impossible!"

Sauron stood there in silence, absently fingering one of the Dwarf Rings, then spoke, nudging aside a scroll that had rolled onto his foot. "Clean up this mess. If that is not done within three days, the remaining records organized, and a search for copies kept elsewhere started, you will forfeit your lives."

As the two archivists looked up in astonishment and stammered thanks, Sauron sent a thought to the two fea. As for you, invisible ghosts, come with me. I have something that you need to see. He set off along the hall. Gil-galad and Celebrimbor looked at each other, then followed. There was something in Sauron's tone that suggested danger. Celebrimbor had a strong feeling that he would not like whatever they were to see, but did not feel that they ought to avoid it. They followed Sauron down the great spiral stairs and right to the bottom of the tower. To the dungeons. Celebrimbor's heart sank. What was Sauron planning to do?

The guards saluted Sauron as he passed into the dungeons followed by the two fea. "Two of you follow me," Sauron said to the guards, and two of them did. The conditions in the dungeons were horrible, but the two fea followed Sauron as he walked down the corridor, looking in each cell as he passed but not stopping, apparently looking for something specific. Finally, he stopped at a cell and gestured the door open.

Inside was a rather emaciated female mortal and a small baby. The woman gasped, clasping her baby protectively, and flattened herself against the far wall. "Please don't hurt us?" she begged, too scared to look directly at Sauron, but watching him from the corner of her eye.

Celebrimbor stiffened, not sure how to protect her. Grabbing another Ring would not work now that Sauron had seen that trick.

"I won't hurt you," said Sauron, surprising everybody. "At least, I won't hurt you so long as certain troublemakers behave themselves." He paused to let that sink in. "Yes, you are hostages. Follow the guards."

They continued down the hallway. Sauron stopped twice more to retrieve a dwarvish boy and a barely adult elf-woman from Thranduil's realm, the two fea arguing frantically as they went.

"We've got to rescue them," said Celebrimbor.

"I was afraid Sauron would do something like this," said Gil-galad. "At least he hasn't actually killed them yet. Yet we dare not stop - and rescuing these four alone will not solve the problem. Sauron will merely go back and pick double the number from the other prisoners to kill."

"In all honesty... most of the prisoners here would probably be better off in Mandos' Halls," said Celebrimbor. They floated on in silence for a few feet.

"That decision is not ours to take," said Gil-galad. "Fortunately."

"Yes, fortunately. That leaves us with two choices than," said Celebrimbor. "Stop, or find a way to protect the prisoners."

"For the sake of the rest of Middle-earth, we dare not stop. If we could find a threat to hold over his head that would give him pause as much as the prisoners do us, we could continue. Or is there a way of rescuing most or all of the prisoners? You've spent some time down here in the dungeons. What do you think?"

"Ai! It would be very difficult. Let me think..." Celebrimbor went silent and thought frantically. It didn't honestly seem possible, but he ran several scenarios through his head. At last he said "It might be possible to get them out of the dungeons, but I don't think they could go very far through the rest of the tower. Getting them out of the tower would only be possible if there was something truly spectacular going on to distract everyone in the tower. Once outside the tower - you know more about Mordor and what's going on outside."

"They would not get far," said Gil-galad. "But what if we hid them somewhere within the tower?"

"They'd need access to food and water," said Celebrimbor, "and they would have to be somewhere nobody went. The best areas are probably in the lower part of the tower, which is also the closest to the dungeons."

"What about the mithril room?" Gil-galad. "No one goes in there."

"Food and water," said Celebrimbor. "There's none in there. It's also too high up in the tower. We could never get them up there unseen."

They continued discussing possible locations, but realized that neither of them were very familiar with the lowest parts of the tower and they would have to do some exploring before picking a location, if there were even any suitable locations to choose.

Chapter End Notes

A/N: A rather dark chapter, but that happens when writing a story set in Barad-dur if you try to keep people in character. I suspect the story won't get much darker, and there will definitely be some more humor in future chapters.