theScrapWitch

"What cruelty," Lúthien murmurs. "We must deal with his legs before we can move him. He ought not be moved, in truth, but—"

"No," says Maglor, who has spent many long hours watching the minute movements of Maedhros' face in semi-consciousness, "water first, he needs water."

But Maedhros shudders at the word, musters a little moan of protest.

Lúthien looks helplessly at Aeluin. For all that it is free now of him who polluted it, its surface is still black and fetid. Even flies do not dare come close to it.

There is still a great deal of work to be done.

"One of the springs, then," she decides, and dashes off to the nearest one. No trace now of the lethargy that plagued her on their journey; Maglor has never seen her more radiant.

Meanwhile Maedhros twitches silently on the grass, lines of pain etched deeper into his face than the carvings on a stone statue. Sometimes he opens his eyes and looks up at Maglor, unseeing, and Maglor averts his gaze as quickly as he can each time.

"Here," says Lúthien, so light on her feet that Maglor did not hear her approach, "I sang it clean as best as I could."

The little hollowed-out wooden cup she presents to him is full of clear water, no scent of rot emanating from it.

Still Maedhros chokes and gasps, when Maglor raises it to his lips. Still his mouth forms soundless pleas, and he turns his head as best as he can to the side, nearly spilling the precious liquid.

"It's only water, Nelyo," Maglor says unhappily – or tries to say, for Maedhros' mind is open and defenceless to him for the first time in long weeks, and his own throat seems to burn with the memory of the foul and poisoned liquid Sauron forced upon his brother.

Can he bear, even now, to do likewise? Is there strength in him to hold Maedhros' head still, and compel him to drink, and deny him once again any glimpse at self-will?

Surely no Power smiles now upon him who is forsworn before Eru himself. But there is grace in the world yet, for before he can summon the words to plead Maedhros shudders and drinks the water, swallowing quickly as though trying not to taste it, and then slumps back against the grass.

"Thank you," Maglor breathes, and then he brings his hand to cover his brother's eyes. "Sleep now, Nelyo."

He is too sick at heart to put any more than the barest hint of compulsion into his voice, but that is all it takes. Maedhros' body relaxes at last.

"You are good at this," Lúthien observes.

Maglor shrugs. "Practice. Tell me, what can we do?"

He forces himself to look now at his brother's ruined legs, the black streaks of infection running up his thighs, the jagged splinters of bone poking through his skin, the near-perpendicular angle at which his right knee is bent.

"We will have to clean them," Lúthien says unhappily, "and then splint them as best as we can. O for my mother's herb-garden! There are so few growing things here. Yet we must do what we can, or he will not survive the journey."

She wanders off then, and Maglor, trusting to her greater expertise, is left sitting cross-legged on the grass with Maedhros' head in his lap.

This should be easy. This is what he knows best, after all.

After a time Maedhros starts to twitch again, little broken sounds of pain spilling forth from his lips; and Maglor lays his hand on his brother's brow and sings the old lullaby, the one he made for Maedhros so long ago by the shores of Mithrim.

It rings hollow somehow, echoing off Aeluin's blackened waters. Once Maedhros is settled again Maglor switches his song to the words of Rían's lament instead.

He liked Lúthien's version of the song, alight with hope and promise; but his voice now slips more easily into the melancholy strains of the original, and the terrible sadness of memory.

Lúthien smiles, even so, when she comes back with a few stems of fragrant athelas in her hands, and another little cup of water. "This is the best I could do," she says; "but I think it may suffice."

And she sets to work crushing the leaves into a poultice, chewing them herself to soften them faster, humming a growing-song at them to stretch their thin supply a little further; and when it is done there is just enough to cover even Maedhros' long legs in herb-paste.

Maglor dresses the poor wounds, and does not flinch to feel the congealed blood beneath his fingers. Maedhros in his stupor does not stir, either.

Some little gleam of foresight possessed Maglor to pack a roll of bandages when he left Barad Eithel, and with that he binds Maedhros' legs as tightly as Lúthien directs, and then cuts the two healthiest young willow-branches he can find (for too many are rotten through to the middle, past what any song can do to save them) to serve as splints.

"Crude," says Lúthien, worrying at her lip, "but I believe – I hope it will last us the return journey, at least."

"And then what?" Maglor asks. "Will he lose the legs, do you think?"

Lúthien hesitates.

"You thought I might," Maglor points out, "and I was less gravely injured than he."

"Carcharoth's venom was in your wound," says Lúthien, "and Gorthaur had no such poison for your brother. But more than that... well, you chose to heal. And he will have to do likewise."

Maglor is silent.

Lúthien looks at him, searchingly. "Dorthonion is not what it was," she says quietly. "I think perhaps its cleansing will take many years to be done in full. But we have made a start, the two of us, for all the work that yet remains. Do you understand me?" And when Maglor nods, she says, "Then let's go."

Meanwhile (some months later) in the Halls of Mandos:

They are masterfully made, the tapestries of Míriel, with their shifting colours and details so fine they might as well have been painted.

But the current school of thought among the Maiar of Mandos holds that the Noldor among the dead ought not to be over-troubled with visions of colour and light, that the reminder of what can never again be theirs will serve only to make them unruly.

Most of the tapestries they are presented it are worked in muted, neutral colours, all grey-glimmering shadow and deep brown earth.

So it is blinding, this latest work, the Silmaril-light at its centre woven from threads of silver and gold so bright they seem almost to glow of their own accord, the faces of the three central figures around it cast into terrible, too-truthful relief: the servant of Morgoth with his artificially fine features distorted in agony, Maedhros crumpled insensate at his feet, and Maglor white with determination, a sliver of darkness separating his fingers from the jewel.

Reaching, or releasing? It would be hard to tell, were it not for the border of the tapestry and the rest of the tale it weaves, of the reclamation of Dorthonion and the flight of Sauron with the Silmaril.

Amrod laughed, and laughed, and laughed, when first he saw it.

The Oath still burns within him – without him, for he is no fitting vessel for it now. By rights he ought to be angry. By rights he ought to curse his brother, for the Doom he has tightened around them.

So Celegorm declares, when he sees Amrod's glee: "You are a fool, to rejoice for him who has damned you for ever! Think you now that you will ever see daylight again?"

"I damned myself, Tyelko," says Amrod, between fits of laughter. "There is no undoing for me; the Everlasting Darkness is my lot." He gestures, in an abstract unbodied sort of way, at the gleaming tapestry. "But our brothers may yet have hope! They may yet grow free of it. Ambarussa might."

"You call this freedom?" Celegorm demands, his eyes roving in disgust over the scene. "He has thrown away what little advantage we had. That was the Silmaril I died for—"

"I thought you died for Huan," says Amrod, and Celegorm has no answer.

"You said my shackles remained," Amrod presses, "and would do whatever I made of them. You said the Oath compelled you to your evil, that you drove our cousin from his throne because he thought to lay his hand upon a Silmaril. You said we had no choice at all, Tyelko."

"And did we?" Celegorm demands. "You tried to choose differently, did you not? You tried to leave. And what came of it? The Doom had already ensared you, as it does us all."

Amrod gestures at the tapestry again. "And yet."

"Do not use our brother's deed as an excuse to moralise at me!" Celegorm snaps. "I guarantee you his reasons were not so selfless as you make them out; and his own shackles are far from broken."

"I did not say they were," Amrod says mildly; "to be sure, there is still a great deal of work to be done. But I begin to hope that he might do it, that there is a chance yet for the living." He shrugs.

"Well, you do not number among them," Celegorm says, cold, "so all your hope is to little purpose."

He disappears with the spirit-equivalent of a shoulder check.

Amrod thinks he would rather like to speak to Finrod again. But he lingers a moment at the tapestry first, marvelling at the skill it must have taken.

How strange to think his grandmother, whose very name was once a byword for death, now lives and breathes in Vairë's halls, and it is he who looks upon her work unbodied.

Míriel, too, once swore that she would never leave Mandos.

How fine her work, now! Not just the Silmaril-light, a memory of a memory of the Trees that are lost, but the grimy texture of the cave-walls, the glints of copper in Maedhros' hair, the skin of Sauron's hand just beginning to char at the touch of the jewel.

Maglor's face, oddly, is more hastily done. Or else Amrod has forgotten what his brother looked like, in the long years; but he thinks Míriel here worked too much from memory, put too many of Fëanor's features into the face of his second son.

Or does he only think that because—

But the face he might have glimpsed is lost in the ceaseless churn of spirits clustered around the tapestry before he can quite name the thought.

Back in Dorthonion:

Their progress is much slower on the return journey.

Lúthien leads the way, singing softly: the forest is healing already, rare patches of sunlight leaking through the canopy at intervals to guide their way, but there are still seeds to be planted that will not bloom for many years to come.

She works with her hands, too, tugging at the black weeds that sprouted up to choke good trees, and scraping patches of rot and fungus from their trunks.

Maglor follows behind, carrying Maedhros' unconscious body. It is an easier task than it would have been had Maedhros not just spent weeks in starvation: still his limbs are inconveniently long, and Maglor must take care not to knock his broken legs against the obstacles they pass.

"You are quiet," Lúthien observes, when they pause for a break. She has been examining Maedhros at regular intervals, and now feels confident in saying, "I think he will recover, you know."

"In body," Maglor says, and then sighs. "No, it is not – I am glad, you know, and grateful beyond measure."

"I do not see to whom gratitude is owed," Lúthien says. "It was you who won the day."

"Some victory!" Maglor says, with a little laugh; but then he falls silent, and busies himself with better adjusting Maedhros against the soft soil.

But Lúthien is tired of things that fester in the darkness.

"Do you regret it?" she asks directly.

"How can I regret it?" Maglor says. "And yet—" He draws a breath. "He will never forgive me, you know."

"What, for saving him?" But Lúthien knows it is not so simple. "I think you did a great thing here, Maglor, and one that should give you courage – Maedhros, too, when he learns of it. Did not you claim once that the Oath turned you into the worst version of yourself, made it so that its voice was the only one you could follow? But you beat it – you won!"

"At what cost?" Maglor asks. "It is not – I would take the Everlasting Darkness upon myself for his sake, I have long known that. But he will be so very angry. He forgave me Thangorodrim, but this—"

"But the debt is paid," Lúthien breathes. "Do you see that? No more owing, Maglor. The debt is paid."

"I do not know if it will ever be paid," says Maglor.

"That," says Lúthien, "sounds to me like another sort of shackle."

Maglor bristles. "They are not the same."

Lúthien does not press. "I suppose not," she murmurs. "Still – I think you know now that you can choose to be free of it, that you are not bound for ever."

That was all Maglor wanted. And yet—

But he cannot regret it.

And besides, he has never seen Lúthien so irrepressibly glad before, for all she tries to temper her joy for his sake. Still her smile bubbles up as they pass through the forest, with every healthy tree she touches and every wildflower she sees blooming of its own accord and every bird that trills the melody of Rían's song above their heads.

What a gift she will be bringing back to Beren – how joyful her own return shall be! Maglor is not so petty as to envy her.

"Will you make a new home here, do you think?" he asks.

"I hope so," Lúthien says. "I want – I want Lalaith to know this land. I want my son to love it the way I love it, the way his father did."

"You have done a great thing, too, you know," Maglor tells her.

Lúthien smiles. "Perhaps it was selfish! But I love this land, and its people." She draws a breath. "I think – I think Finrod would be proud, too."

“I think he would,” Maglor says quietly, and Lúthien presses his hand.

They carry on, pace by pace. Pause to change Maedhros' dressings and trickle water past his unresisting lips. To let Lúthien rest, too; for all her vibrant joy the child growing in her still claims some of her energy, though she is less drained now than she was.

Maglor settles into a pattern, grows used to the best way to angle himself to make sure he does not knock Maedhros' legs against low-hanging branches, finds a place on his shoulder to rest Maedhros' head as he walks.

How familiar, the weight of him. How heavy, too.

But a new unease begins to creep up on him as they grow closer to Dorthonion's northern border. He cannot place it – it is only a resonating wrongness, a nauseating sense of some terrible thing about to happen.

Lúthien notices it too, or rather notices the way his ears begin to flatten against the side of his head, and the hunted, haunted look in his eyes. "What?" she asks. "Gorthaur—?"

"No – no," says Maglor. "Not – Lúthien, leave us, run—"

But there is nothing even coming, as far as Lúthien's senses can tell.

She is not so foolish as to tell Maglor he is mistaken. Better, she decides, to quicken their pace, and reach the lands Fingon's people guard the sooner.

"Don't be silly," she says, reaching for his wrist. "Come – we're nearly there."

But Maglor cannot settle as they walk, keeps looking southward over his shoulder as though stalked by some invisible shadow.

At last he stops dead.

"What is it?" Lúthien asks, when she realises he is some way behind her. "We're so close—"

Maglor is not listening. He kneels to settle Maedhros on the ground, and then says, loudly, "I know you're there. Step out of the shadows, if you are still capable of it."

A phantom slips from between the tree-trunks, a face from (literally, in Lúthien's case) another life: thin, bedraggled, but with the same animating gleam in his dark eyes as ever.

Yeah it's fucking Curufin.

At this stage they are set upon by the Nargothrondim guarding these lands, and even once Finduilas casts her hood back to reveal the pale gleam of the sunlight upon her golden hair, they are taken, hands bound and blindfolded, to be brought before the King.

In the time they were away, Orodreth has been thinking fearfully of Thingol of Doriath, and how ill went his attempts to keep his own daughter in a cage.

His welcome, then, is more measured than Celebrimbor could ever have hoped for. "Your errand," he says, "was foolish, do not mistake me. Diplomacy is more than a sweet smile, my daughter. But I am glad that your cousin has brought you home safe."

Finduilas bites down on the frustration that surges within her. She is in no position to pertly toss her head, and tell her father she brought herself home, thank you very much.

Once Celebrimbor has been dismissed, Orodreth fixes her with a sharper glance, and says slowly, "I spent some time in your uncle's chambers while you were missing, as much as it made me sorrow. I hoped to find some little clue as to your whereabouts."

"I would have left some note or message," Finduilas says rapidly, "had I not feared that you would send riders after me to bring me home—"

"As well I would have!" says her father, more sternly than is his wont. "Take not my leniency with you to mean you are forgiven." And once she has bowed her head, he continues, "But I did find something grave in Finrod's chambers all the same — or rather, I did not find what I should have. The Nauglamír is missing, Finduilas."

"What?" Finduilas says dumbly.

Did lying always come so naturally to her as it now seems to?

"Then you have no knowledge of this?" Orodreth says. "I was hoping – I hoped you had merely taken it to adorn yourself—"

"I know better than that, Father," Finduilas says, and there is no need to fake the irritation in her voice. "Why, the Nauglamír is our greatest relic of Finrod, of the very kingship of Nargothrond!"

"You need not remind me," her father says heavily. "Every day the tally of my failures grows beyond count. But you know, I am sure, daughter, who coveted the necklace for his own."

Finduilas swallows. "Celegorm is dead."

"But his brother, curse his name, yet lingers in Middle-earth," says Orodreth. "Curufin understood what a work of mastery the necklace was; and he knew, too, what its bearer might claim – or bargain for."

"But he could not have taken it," says Finduilas, "he has not entered these halls since we cast him out, and it was there when last I checked."

"He could not have," says Orodreth; "but we yet harbour many of his people." He meets her eyes. "Finduilas, tell me now: has Celebrimbor your cousin had any contact with his father, in the years since Finrod died?"

Finduilas may have Fucked Up. to be honest.

"No," she says, keeping a wall around her mind, "no, he has not, Father, I am certain."

“And if he had,” Orodreth presses, “for Curufin must know his son is his last avenue open for a return to grace – if he does reach out, will Celebrimbor truly turn his face from him?”

This one is easier, at least. “He will,” Finduilas says, decisively. “You cannot imagine the curses he has laid at his father’s feet! He will not even name him as his kin, Father.”

Orodreth nods, but there is a faint troubled line between his eyes. “Very well,” he says; “but I am worried, Finduilas.”

Finduilas can think of nothing to say but another mumbled apology before she slips out.

Meanwhile in Barad Eithel:

Strange how a shooting star can mean both hope and its ending for all time, salvation from the north and damnation from the south.

It is not over yet, Fingon tells himself daily. He does not know yet what happened in Dorthonion.

But all his court laid eyes upon the blaze of light from the Silmaril arcing northwards from Dorthonion towards Angband itself, and all have come to the same conclusion: Maglor defeated, the Silmaril reclaimed, Fingon’s own heart cold and buried in an unmarked grave.

It has been more than two years since he watched the jewel clasped between Lúthien's fingers mark a shining trail out of Angband upon Thorondor's back; and in all the time since he has clung to his faith in Eagles.

But he grows listless now, weary of lying to himself. How can he believe that he will see Maedhros again, if Maglor's quest went so ill that the Silmaril was taken? How can he cling to the hope that the war will be won, if the light is lost for ever?

No one has yet had the courage to offer him their condolences. They watch him quietly, warily, as though they recognise him no longer.

Do you really think, Turgon demanded when last they saw each other, that he would put his love for you above his accursed Oath?

Fingon was too angry, then, to listen to his brother’s words. But alone in the dead of the night they come creeping back to him.

He would have died for Maedhros. Has killed for him, even.

How galling, now, to have all those sacrifices thrown back in his face as though they were worthless, as though Maedhros' life were worthless, and all Fingon's efforts to preserve it naught but the games of a child building sandcastles upon the beach before the tide comes in, and willing those fragile constructions to endure for ever.

How swiftly Himring crumbled, once it was set ablaze.

What is left for Fingon, now? A crown he did not want, and people who will not love him, and a war he cannot win.

Still it is not within him to succumb.

When Maeglin comes to him – Maeglin, who alone of his advisors is yet willing to look him in the eye – and says, "Uncle, I have discovered a foul little orc-nest in the mountains to the north, and I cannot think how best to flush them out. Will you ride out with me, and assess the situation?", Fingon hesitates only for a moment.

He knows all too well what the boy wants. But a glorified scouting-trip can surely pose no real harm; and there is no-one to restrain him now from heroics.

"All right," he says.

Back in Dorthonion:

"Hello, Káno," says Curufin. He smiles, which does not make him look any less deranged. "Fancy running into you here."

Before she can help herself, Lúthien makes a small sound of fear.

How can that voice still chill her so?

Curufin looks at her, and curls his lip. "What is that Dark-elf slut doing with you?"

Maglor draws his sword. "You might think twice before you speak of her so, Curufin," he says, in chilly Sindarin. "She has faced down Morgoth and Sauron both since last you laid eyes upon her. Rest assured she does not need my help to do it – but all the same I will kill you if you touch her."

Curufin raises his hands dramatically. The right, Maglor notes, is still blistered and burned. "Easy, Káno. She will meet her fate with or without my aid, and I care not." He nods at Maedhros prone on the ground. "What happened to him?"

"Do not pretend to care now," says Maglor, with a bitter laugh, "after all you have done – he would never have gone were it not for you—"

Curufin's eyes narrow. Slowly, he says, "He spoke with me mind-to-mind, and bid me come north as fast as I could."

That catches Maglor's attention. "He did? When?"

"Not two six-days ago."

That would have been just before Sauron's messenger arrived at Barad Eithel. Maglor had long since given up trying to reach Maedhros by then, had assumed that his brother's mind was closed off to everyone.

"What did he tell you?" he says, making no effort to hide the coldness in his voice.

But Curufin curls his lip. "You might ask him yourself," he says, "since you are so high in his confidence."

That stings.

"I would," Maglor cries, his voice a sharp ringing thing that makes the air grow stiller and Curufin clap a hand over his ears, "were he in any state to speak with me – but you might imagine that his weeks in Sauron's care were not so very luxurious—"

"Sauron?" Curufin repeats, blanching. "I thought perhaps – but I did not realise – how could he be so careless as to be taken again?"

"He was not taken," Maglor says, suddenly weary. "He went of his own accord, and now we are bringing him back to Barad Eithel."

"I don't understand," says Curufin.

"There is much you don't understand, Curufin," says Maglor, "and I of all people have little humour to explain them to you. Fare well; we are leaving."

"So wroth with me, Káno, even now?" Curufin asks softly. "Himring's ashes are long scattered."

"It is not Himring—" Maglor begins, and then catches himself. How can he say, He left me, you made him leave me, you did this to him? Instead he draws upon an older well of fury. "I could have died for all you knew, after you abandoned me in the caves."

"I knew you wouldn't, Káno," Curufin says, his eyes surprisingly sad. "I knew you'd call for help. I knew he’d come for you."

An easier time, with Maedhros' mind against his, promising, I need you, I need you.

“I have not the time for this,” Maglor says, kneeling to gather Maedhros back into his arms. "Why come back now, anyway? No one has heard anything of you for the better part of two years. Have you spent all that time flitting beneath the shadows, barred from the gates of all the kingdoms of the Eldar?"

"I told you," says Curufin, maddeningly calm still. "Nelyo sent for me." He tilts his head and gives Maglor an assessing look. "He told me Sauron held a Silmaril – or that he soon would, at any rate. He said I must intercept Angband's messenger before it arrived. At the time I knew not how he could have learned of this; but it seems he did not reveal all to me."

Maglor laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

"Maglor," breathes Lúthien, hovering uncertainly behind him.

Between gasps for breath, Maglor chokes out, "So this was his plan! Well, a very fine strategy it was, except for the hundred things wrong with it. There is no Silmaril, Curufin. Sauron did not have one. No doubt he was bluffing all along, if he told Nelyo he would send for it. He hoped to use Nelyo as bait for Findekáno, that is all."

"Except it didn't work," Curufin says shrewdly, "because the two of you came instead. And defeated him, by the looks of it. Does he dwell yet in Dorthonion? Is there any chance he had stashed the jewel away, out of your sight?"

"No and no," Maglor says, not meeting his brother's eyes. This line of questioning is growing uncomfortable. "Lúthien cast him out. Can you not see how the land has been cleansed? Or do you bring such shadow with you that even that is veiled from your eyes?"

"Káno," says Curufin, "I am trying—" But the jibe does not distract him for long. "So Nelyo was fooled entirely? What a waste!"

"You may say so," Maglor says bitterly. He sees as though through Curufin's eyes the ruin that has been made of his brother's body, the bruised and hollowed cheeks, the jut of his bones even through the cloak wrapped around him, the stiffly splinted legs.

What a waste, of all that Maedhros might have been.

"You will see now why I am in some hurry to have him back at Barad Eithel," he says.

Curufin's gaze has moved away from him, resting with a sneering directness upon Lúthien instead. She stares back, straight-backed and grey-faced.

"I suppose you will continue on your way, then," Maglor says, drawing Curufin's attention back to himself, "still plotting some way to penetrate the Girdle, or else the stone walls of Angband itself?"

Curufin looks scornfully at him. "There is no power that will penetrate the Girdle," he says, "save that which you hoard to yourself at Barad Eithel. I suppose Good King Fingon will not countenance any attempt to breach Thingol's borders? Or perhaps he was only waiting until you had departed – trusting him to keep our Silmaril safe for you, I suppose—"

These are getting to be very dangerous waters for Maglor.

"Your understanding of politics continues to astound," he says icily; "was it this vaunted genius at work when you overthrew Finrod, and marched out against Thingol yourself? You need not concern yourself with the fate of that Silmaril, Curufin. Be only assured that it is beyond your grasp."

"The fate of that Silmaril?" Curufin repeats, too quickly. His eyes narrow. "But even you would not have been fool enough to leave it behind at Barad Eithel – unless Nelyo took it when he fled—"

"He did not much like," says Maglor, through numb lips, "to touch it."

"So he left it behind," says Curufin, ignoring Lúthien's curious eyes upon his burned hand. "And you must have brought it with you on your heroic rescue mission. Where is it?"

Maglor forces a laugh. "What, planning another assault on Doriath so soon?"

"It does not escape my attention," Curufin says, "that you have made no use of that Silmaril, or of Thingol's daughter's presence, to force him to give the other up to you."

"Oh, Curvo," says Maglor, moved almost to pity, "there is so very little you understand. I hope some measure of insight comes to you, in time. But I cannot delay any longer now. Nelyo needs healers." And he makes, once again, to gather Maedhros' limp body into his arms.

"But you have not answered my question, Káno," says Curufin, enunciating every word carefully. "Where is the Silmaril?"

"In my pack, of course," Maglor says, adopting an exasperated manner. "No, you cannot see it. What do you want with it, anyway? I have very little faith that it will suffer your touch!"

But as his attention is on Maedhros Curufin lunges suddenly for where his pack is lying on the ground—

On instinct, Lúthien darts forward to block him—

Curufin draws a knife on her. "Get out of my way, bitch," he snarls, eyes wild. "Have you not taken enough from me?"

Maglor leaps to his feet, but before he can do anything Lúthien says, with every appearance of serenity although her cheeks are pale, "Curufin, you are not worthy of your noble weapon," and the knife-hilt briefly glows red-hot in Curufin's left hand before he drops it with a gasp.

Lúthien picks it up. "I shall have to start a collection," she says. "Angrist served us well, of course, but this too is of a very fine make, and shall be of use to me."

She is playing for time, trying to keep Curufin distracted until they can make their getaway—

"You," hisses Curufin, "you have stolen it, have you not? By all the Powers, you will pay for this—"

"She did not take it, Curufin," says Maglor. "I gave it up. Sauron has it."

For a moment Curufin is silent, the length of a great intake of breath, a silence that puts Maglor in mind of the brief moments of calm before flames issued forth from Glaurung's mouth once more.

"What do you mean," Curufin says then, slowly, "you gave it up?"

"It was the only way to free him," Maglor says, hating the plaintive note in his own voice. "The shackle – it was all I had of myself to give—"

But Curufin did not hear Fingon's sorrowful warning; nor does he have much appreciation for the narrative neatness that consoles Maglor now. His face contorts. "Yourself?" he repeats. "Yourself? The jewel that our father died for, the jewel into whose making he poured his very soul, the jewel you swore to reclaim at any cost – you dare to name it part of yourself?"

"What would you have had me do?" Maglor asks, white-faced. "It was the jewel or Nelyo. Once before was that choice put before me; I will not regret it a second time."

"Oathbreaker!" Curufin chokes out, and he launches himself suddenly at Maglor, pinning him to the ground, his hands closing around his throat. "Every breath you take spits on our father's name – you faithless coward—"

Lúthien cries out and tries to pull Curufin away, and then when she remembers to stab at him with the confiscated knife; but the blade will not come near its master's arm, but veers and dodges, nearly slicing into Lúthien's own fingers.

Curufin laughs at her, baring his teeth. "See, I too can learn my lessons! You will not use my own weapon against me again."

Beneath him Maglor struggles and kicks, but for all his wiy, underfed appearance there is still strength in Curufin, and Maglor never fully recovered his own after his long convalescence—

Lúthien, sobbing, rams her shoulder into Curufin, tries to break free his long fingers' death-grip around Maglor's throat, but they will not be loosened—

"Are you going to kill me, Curvo?" Maglor pants, with almost the very last of his breath. His eyes are very bright. "Took you long enough to finish the job! But it will not bring you what you seek."

Of course it's at this inopportune moment that Maedhros wakes up.

He cannot speak yet, but he mouths Maedhros’ name and hovers over him, hesitant to touch him.

But Maedhros reaches with his crushed left hand to touch the livid red marks on Maglor’s neck, his eyes wide.

The brush of his broken fingers against Maglor's skin is enough to make him shudder and almost swoon, collapsing back onto the ground before Maglor can catch him.

"You would not look at him so tenderly," says Curufin, recovered from his shock, "if you knew what he had done!"

Maglor rises to his feet, still a little unsteady until Lúthien catches his elbow.

He realises now that the danger is still more pressing than it was with Curufin's hands around his throat – but, silenced, how can he make him stop—?

Curufin meets Maedhros' eyes directly. "I will tell you, since he has not the courage," he says. "He yielded up the Silmaril to Sauron, passed it right into his very hands – the Silmaril you trusted him with, Nelyo – the Silmaril we swore to regain as our father lay dying—"

"You always were a nasty little snitch, Curvo," Maglor rasps, his throat aching with every word. "But all your cursing and raging will avail you nothing now. The Silmaril is gone: and had I the choice still before me I would give it again."

"It was not yours to give!" snarls Curufin, his eyes aflame. "Nelyo, tell him—"

"Nelyo," says Maglor, putting every scrap of power he has into his abused voice, "go to sleep."

Maedhros, whose eyes were roving between the pair of them in mute, bewildered dismay, does not need much persuasion. Almost before Maglor has finished speaking he has slipped back into unconsciousness.

"There," says Maglor, opening his hands, "he will not stay you again; slay me, if you will. You could have done so in the cave, and taken the Silmaril from me then, and none of this would have come to pass." He pauses, and then adds, "Of course, you could not touch it."

Curufin curls his lip. "And yet it was you the jewel should have shunned, you who bartered it away like a common coin! Did Sauron laugh to see it, to know how neatly you had played into his trap? You say Fingon was the prize he wanted – and yet he has brought his master a bounty far the greater!"

"He did not laugh," Maglor says; "the pain of the burning made him scream. I doubt it is an easy thing, to know you are forsaken."

"Less easy, still, to know the Everlasting Darkness awaits you!" hisses Curufin. "I hope you consider it a price well worth paying."

"I do, actually," says Maglor. "Is that so very incomprehensible to you, Curufin? Has our Oath contorted you so very far beyond recognition? I am tired of it. I will not let it shackle me so again."

"It is not your choice," says Curufin; "a shackle you may name it, if there is nothing of honour in you, if our father's memory moves you not at all, but you are bound by what you swore. What you chose to swear, I need not remind you! You are not free to ignore those words now."

"Well, I just did," says Maglor. "What are you going to do about it? Lay hands upon me again, if you will; indeed that selfsame Oath compels you to do so." And when Curufin makes no motion towards him, he adds, "No? So perhaps its hold on you is not so firm, either."

"He would not have wished it," says Curufin, grief contorting his face almost beyond recognition. "I at least still care enough to think of it. Little though you deserve it, faithless son though you are, he loved you."

Maglor laughs harshly, and then regrets it, his throat throbbing. "Did he! Well, that is news to me. We were only weapons to him, Curufin, useful tools in his endless war. Look what that made of us – look what he did to us!" He gestures at Maedhros' prone body at his feet.

Curufin looks at Maedhros, carefully and closely now, as though counting off each of the abuses catalogued on his skin. Then he meets Maglor's eyes again, and says, "You will blame anyone and everyone except for whom you must."

"Tell me it was not our father's fault," Maglor insists, anger flaring under his skin again, and something closer to terror, "tell me he did not drive Nelyo straight into Morgoth's ambush and all that has befallen him since; tell me that the accursed Oath did not bring him here to be Sauron's plaything a second time."

Curufin's gaze on him is cool, pitying somehow. "If you will not see it," he says, "I cannot make you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Maglor says icily.

"It matters not," says Curufin; "or would not, had your blindness not lost us the last of the Silmarils. How now are we ever to fulfil the Oath? Did you stop for even a moment to think of it, puffed up as you were with your heroism and your sacrifice?" He looks over at Lúthien again and his lip curls. "You forget, I think, Káno, what your place in the story ought to be."

"Perhaps," Maglor murmurs. "Or perhaps I have decided to craft myself a better one."

"Then I have nothing more to say to you," Curufin says bitterly, "since you have chosen treachery. But you will pay for this, Káno. Do not forget that the Everlasting Darkness awaits you yet."

Lúthien, who has been silent all this time, watching Curufin warily, now shifts her attention to Maglor, her gaze suddenly very keen and bright.

Maglor does not know what to make of it. But he says only, "The other fate was worse."

"He will not thank you," Curufin warns. "You realise that, do you not?"

Fingon had a similar warning for Maglor before he set out. Now, as then, all Maglor can say in response is, "I know."

"Then you have thrown it all away for nothing," says Curufin.

Maglor shrugs. "I thought you had nothing more to say to me, Curvo."

"I do not," Curufin says stiffly.

"Right," Maglor says. "We'll be going, then."

"You cannot—" Curufin blusters. "I mean – so you will do nothing to fix this?"

"What will you have me do?" Maglor demands. "Launch myself alone against Doriath, as you tried to such great success, or else march on Angband, chase down Sauron himself and wrestle him for the Silmaril? You are welcome to make some such fool's errand, if you please; but my path leads me to Barad Eithel and shelter."

"Perhaps," Curufin murmurs. "Or perhaps..." He looks at Maglor again and his eyes flash. "A reckoning will come for you some day, Káno, however you may try to put it off. Do not forget that the Valar have no intercession to make for you."

"Maybe, Curufin," says Lúthien, "it is you who are mistaken in that."

But Curufin bares his teeth at her, wolf-like, and then turns his back on them both and disappears back into the trees.

Lúthien takes Maglor's hand. "Come," she says softly. "We still have a way to go."

Back in Barad Eithel:

"They are surely not any real trouble," says Maeglin. "So small a force as they are – almost certainly I can deal with them myself, only—"

How transparent his tricks, really. "No," Fingon says, "you said I ought to look at them, and so I will. I will not hear it said that I derelict my duties."

"I'm sure no one really means that, uncle," says Maeglin.

"All the same I have heard it," Fingon says shortly. "I suggest we set out this very eve, if you are ready. We do not want your little nest creeping southwards to Barad Eithel, after all." There! That will make him scurry.

"This eve? Very well," says Maeglin. If he is disconcerted he does a good job of hiding it. "I do not know that there is much risk they will move, but we ought to be cautious, I suppose."

"And you will bring the same party you rode out with, of course," says Fingon. "Since they know the way."

"Of course," Maeglin says mildly. "If you will excuse me, uncle. I have some preparations to attend to."

Left alone, Fingon tries to summon up some spark of fear, or nervousness, or anything at all, really.

It's a trap, Maedhros would say, are you mad, Finno? Why are you being baited so easily?

Well.

Fingon cannot even draw upon the energy to be sarcastic.

Is it not his turn to be reckless, now? Has he not waited patiently, and done his duty, and bided his time – and all for nothing?

Enough, now. Why ought he not to weigh his own life as cheaply as Maedhros weighed his? Why must he alone be cautious?

He has tolerated Maeglin's subtleties and insinuations for too long. Let the boy make his attempt at insurrection, and if he fails he will subside, and learn his lesson; if he succeeds—

It will not be Fingon's job to care, should he succeed.

He leaves the thin silver circlet his father bequeathed to him sitting neatly on his desk. There is nothing else to leave behind.

He is already mounted and ready to go when Maeglin meets him in the courtyard that evening.

Meanwhile, in Angband:

"I have won a great prize for you, master."

"It had better be grand indeed for you to show yourself here after your failures. We would have taken Barad Eithel had you not turned and fled from the sight of Fëanor's son."

"It was that selfsame son of Fëanor who will prove the undoing of the Noldor. He came to me in secret, and in exchange for his freedom his brother yielded up to me the Silmaril they had hoarded in Barad Eithel."

"I see. And where are the gems now – or do you fancy yourself the Lord of Arda, and seek to claim them for your own?"

"Never, master! I have it here – I would not set it down for an instant until I had won an audience with you."

"Those fair and skilful fingers of yours! Well, you too have tasted some measure of Varda's so-called justice now. And the other?"

"The... other, lord?"

"You sent to me requesting that I send forth the last Silmaril remaining to me, in secret and at great speed, and you would use it to cleave Melian's Girdle and bring me her obstreperous husband's head at long last. Has your memory grown faulty, lieutenant?"

"..."

"Let me ask more plainly: where is the other Silmaril?"

"Lord, I... I didn't think you would actually do it—"

"... Do you mean to tell me that the jewel I sent to you on your explicit request, trusting that with it you would win me Doriath, is not with you?"

"I could not use it anyhow – Maedhros was lying to me—"

"Even better! You were outwitted once again by the son of Fëanor. Is it thrice now or four times that he has evaded you?"

"It was a stroke of chance only that he escaped. Had I held him for longer, I would have had the High King of the Noldor brought to you in chains."

"And all you have instead is one of the Silmarils Melian's brat stole from me. No prisoner, no Doriath, and you have lost the other Silmaril. Leave my stronghold at once, lieutenant; you have done nothing in past months to redeem your failures. And find that Silmaril."