Unhappy Into Woe by StarSpray

Five

Unable to sing or to speak—to scream or to beg—he was thrown into the darkness again, chained to the stones, and forgotten. He offered no more entertainment for the orcs, and so they left him to the company of his own mind, and the ghosts who lived there. He had no songs to drive them away now, and there was no wind or waves or birdsong to drown out their voices. After a time he could not even bring forth the memory of such things. He could not recall the feeling of the waves washing over his feet, or the sun-warmed sand—or the warmth of the sun itself. He could remember the shapes of the constellations but not how they looked as they slowly turned, rising and falling in the sky with the passing seasons. The smell of rain had left him, and the taste of apples off the branch, or strawberries found hidden in a thicket. He sometimes attempted to hum, but the notes of his voice were muffled and fell flatly into the dark, and he could not even get the scales right, or recall the simple melody of the songs he had learned as a child, and so after a time he stopped trying.

Sometimes the Nazgûl passed by and paused, pressing their will against his, leaving him trembling and shivering by the time they moved on. His strength was gone. It was tempting to let go entirely, to free his spirit from his body—but he feared the workings of the Necromancer, and feared even more that Mandos would turn him away, if he was not ensnared first by Sauron’s evil enchantments. 

On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East; the Dispossessed shall they be for ever.

He drifted, but did not sleep, and found no rest. In his waking-dreams his brothers paraded before him, their younger selves laughing and cajoling, reaching for him and calling for him to sing them a song or to join in whatever merriment they were planning. He tried to reach back, but their fingers passed through his like smoke, and they vanished in the dark; other times Celegorm came snarling at him, furious and feral as a wounded animal, and Curufin behind him, sneering. He’d thrown away his Silmaril, after all they had done—all of them—to get it back. What brother was he of theirs who would drown their sacrifices in the Sea? And Maglor did not know how to answer them. Caranthir and the twins said nothing, only turned away, their ghosts dissolving like mist. Maglor wanted to rail at them—they had never touched the Silmarils, had never felt that burning, that pure white distillation of pain that he could not but throw as far from him as he could. But of course all he could do was weep and moan. He could not even beg for them to come back as they walked away, fading back into the darkness.

Maedhros was the worst, a silent shadow, flames behind him, face as blank as the stones of Himring’s walls. It was he who Maglor missed the most, he who had been the one great constant of his life, from the moment of his birth until that horrible day at the edge of the breaking world. His dearest friend, his protector and his comrade in arms, his liege lord. Maglor wanted to shout and rail at him, but he couldn’t. He wanted to embrace him, but like all his dreams, Maedhros dissolved the moment he tried to touch him, leaving Maglor again alone in the dark. They all left, in the end, in dreaming as in waking life. 

In time he really did run out of tears. 

He did not dream of his mother. His dreams were a torment in that dungeon, not a comfort, and except for Sauron’s theft of her face, Nerdanel’s memory had only ever been a comforting one. He kept his thoughts of her locked away in his heart, never to be touched, never sullied by imaginings of what she would think of what he had become. He did, sometimes, dream of his father—of his father at the end, his last words a demand to hear them swear the Oath again. The memories of Fëanor in happier times, when he had laughed under the Mingling light and guided Maglor’s small hands under his own across harp strings for the first time, were growing ever more difficult to bring to his mind. They were smoke-tinged now, and the light in his father’s eyes had taken on a manic sheen that had not been there then. That had come later, so much later, alongside the swords and the helms, and the sudden deepening of his hatred toward his brothers and their families. 

I would have followed you anywhere, Maglor wanted to say to him, when his father’s ghost appeared before him in that dark and cold place. Even there, he burned—the heat felt like the fire of the Silmarils. It hurt. Did you see, with the eyes of death, what would become of us? Did you care? But the Fëanor who appeared now out of Maglor’s own mind was as silent as in life he had been loud. His dark hair fell about his face like the shadows, and the light in his eyes was more like the flames of Sauron than of blessed Treelight. Maglor wanted to scream at him, to shout, to weep, but all he could do was turn his head away, hating him and loving him and feeling nothing but bitterness. 

Sometimes he fancied he saw eyes glinting in the dark, yellow wolfish eyes, and he wondered if he was going mad. He did not think he only fancied the howls that sometimes pierced even through the earth into the dungeons. Lord of Werewolves, Sauron had once been, and it seemed he was still. It would have been a relief if one came to him as it had once to Finrod beneath Tol-in-Gaurhoth. But Finrod had been Doomed but not cursed, and his death had been a hero’s, one worthy of song. Maglor had long ago given up his chance for that.

Whenever he summoned enough strength to move his chains scraped over the stone, the sound so loud in the silence that it hurt. He did it anyway, trying to stretch stiff limbs before curling back in on himself. It was the knowing that there would not be an end that was the worst. He was not Maedhros, and there was no Fingon coming to rescue him. He was not Beren, with a Lúthien coming to sing the tower town for him. No one even knew that he was there. And if anyone did—who would come? Galadriel? There were many, he thought, who she would storm this tower to save, but he was not among them, though they two were the last of Finwë’s grandchildren left in the world. 

But it would be worse if he gave Sauron what he wanted. He had nothing left to lose now except himself, or what remained of him—and that he would lose indeed, if he accepted the relief and comforts and promised riches that came with entering into Sauron’s service. He had not fought the long defeat against Morgoth only to surrender to his lieutenant. Sauron did not return to him, but at times Maglor felt his awareness, his gaze seeming to pierce through the layers of stone and earth between them. Maglor could feel also his power growing, more rapidly now. He was preparing for something. Had been since that strange old man had slipped in and out without being caught. Maglor wondered, sometimes, who that had been, and what he had been looking for. It must have been desperation that would drive someone to enter into the fortress of the Necromancer of Mirkwood. He hoped that the old man had escaped unscathed, whoever he was—that he had escaped the darkness to see the stars again.