Plans by Anérea

"Gone?" The recently arrived Vala responded in a low rumble as he looked up from the large plan of Angband in his hands.

"GONE!?"  This time his roar shook the very rock of Angband, sending stones skittering through the vast network of tunnels, boulders tumbling down the mountainside, and rifts forking out as far as the great plain south of the mountains, where a small group of ancient orcs steadied one another until the tremors ceased. 

One had always retained a memory of forests, vast ancient trees with curling leaves. She had started in the mines of Utumno, chipping the rock in secret swirling patterns that lasted only moments before being destroyed. Then her inherent talent for spatial planning was noticed and in time she was elevated to chief designer of the new fortress of Angband, setting out the arrangement of barracks, breeding rooms and nurseries, and torture chambers; the armouries, smithing chambers and fungi farms; the central throne room and the three spiralling staircases of Thangorodrim, as well as the many tunnels leading down to mines far below and up to hidden openings along the foot of the mountains. 

One tunnel, the longest, was not on the plan that she guessed was now in Melkor's hands. She smiled, not only at their freedom, but at the knowledge she'd left behind an insidious beauty that Morgoth could not marr without completely destroying his fortress once again.