The Darkness Between the Stars

[ten_of_swords]

This.

This place.

It is Angband.

It is Angband.

Not an illusion.

When Gorlim wakes, he is in his cell. Beaten. Bloody. Tortured as he was, starving and thirsty, dizzy and exhausted, as if the Bar had only been a dream of possibilities and nothing more.

Screams ricochet over stone.

Flesh is rended.

Blood flows and drips steadily as the moan (so close now) ceases.

Heavy footsteps cross the sticky, stained floor. Brutal breathing, the sound of a creature whose mouth and nose are misformed, that must breath in a thick, mucousy manner just to live.

It was time.

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[gorlim.livejournal.com]

It is exactly as it was the first time.

Gorlim becomes slowly, painfully aware of where he is, of the sounds, the stench, of the creature hovering above him. An old friend. It takes immense effort to push himself over, to roll his head up and peer through blurring eyes at his tormentor. But every effort is worth it, because it preserves a little bit of rebellion. It's that spirit that, despite all, has yet to be brought to its knees.

Yet.

Even in the dead, Wraith-ridden echo of a man as Gorlim was, brought from Hell to a pub at the end of the universe, still held something of that spirit. It shines through sometimes, as now, when he knows, on all levels of his being, that he must endure. He must. There is more at stake here than his own broken body. He knows he will never be whole again now.

But he won't let ANYONE have the satisfaction of seeing the Beorings toppled. He IS his people here and now, and he is all of their strength.

His own face is a cruel mockery of the orc standing over him. His dry lips have cracked and bled, there is a clotted scab where the lip was split. His nose is broken, his eyes blackened and swollen. But he smiles up at the twisted beast, and parts his parched lips into a mockery of a harsh laugh.

Good evening, Joe. Nice to see you. How ya doin' tonight?

[ten_of_swords]

The Orc bends down, yanking Gorlim up, paying no heed to shattered bones or pains the motion might cause him. It growls, fetid breath breathed into Gorlim's broken face, and grunts in its own language. Its spittle sprays on the Man's torn chest and neck.

It had its orders.

Spoken by a master that had long ago bred its kind.

Sharp talons pierce skin as the Orc grips Gorlim's upper arm tightly, half-carrying, half-dragging the injured Man after him.

Toward a dark, dank, looming throne room where he sat.

Eyes glowing deadly.

Iron crown upin his head.

It brought Gorlim the Unhappy to the feet of its master.

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

This is a new game. He'd realized it shortly after the initial tug. He'd been cataloguing his wounds and his surroundings since consciousness found him, trying to determine -- not where he was, but when.

He knew by the aching in his ribs and the fire in his flesh that it was near the end. He could remember every bruise and every butchery session. He knew the face that went with every scar.

Only they weren't scars now. They were open, festering wounds. Oh, yes, some had scabbed over, some even healed entirely. He had been in their care... how long now? Weeks? Months? A month, surely. Maybe more. And they hadn't hurt him badly early on. He had been meant to live, at least for a while. Their treatment had been rough, but not until Angband had they begun the real torture. And by now, the frozen rain and septic dog-pen at Rivil's Well seemed a memory of luxury. His wrists, neck, and ankles were held with barbed iron shackles where once had only been ropes. The chains linkin arm with arm, with leg and leg were heavy, but not, overall, too impeding of motion. Melkor's minions had learned the art of torture to perfection, and they knew by now that with a victim so battered as Gorlim was by now, bonds preventing long strides or held the hands close together were more of an inconvenience to his keepers, who had to keep dragging him up and along when he fell. Longer chains would never have kept a healthy Adan from running with all his might, and fighting. But this Man had no more fight in him. Not in a way that endangered his wardens.

But it isn't until he is deposited at the Dark Lord's feet that Gorlim realizes when this scene must be.

No...

He thought Ruin might pull something like this. Maybe make him watch himself. Maybe spend a night in Angband. But never this. Never this night. Never this real, never this close to death.

Having lived through it once, a part of his mind was able to see now what he had been unable to see then: that even if they had released him, he would never have lived long. There was a fire in his skin of infection. His unclothed torso and legs had been left bare to the filth of his prison, and to its cold. His fingers and feet were touched with frostbite, though that was not yet threatening, for however cold the Master's heart, the stronghold must necessarily be warmed for the sake of his servants. But he knew his wounds were deep. He thought his left arm might be broken, or pulled out of its joint. He could feel broken ribs, his nose, and suspected the pain in his hand might also be a break. He would never fight again, not as he had. Not EFFECTIVELY. He would be disfigured to an extent. With the sickness in him, despite the natural resiliance of Beorning blood, he was no Elf, and had been starved to the last of his body's reserves. He had heard of such cases and knew he might never be able to father children, and might live with a weak heart and mind.

But live he must -- until the had of his enemy struck him a deathblow. He would not be defeated.

And as he stares up into the blackened eyes of Darkness itself, the pain of torture, the fear of Hell, all flies from his mind. He knows he has to do this for the ones who wait for him. And maybe once it was a woman and his kinsmen in the wood. And maybe now the names have changed, but the desperation is the same, the reason is the same. This is Gorlim the Unhappy. He does not wonder if his actions now might change some past outcome. He does not wonder if this night will leave different scars when he awakes. It doesn't matter. He is acting in the instant, as he had in that instant so long ago, and thinks only that he must respond, and fight, and never... never... never... let... go.

[ten_of_swords]

From beside him walked a robed figure, dark, emotionless eyes watching him.

The form was almost-feral, but still human-like.

Elf-like.

When the robed figure stood beside him, it parted its thin, bloodless lips, revealing sharpened teeth and blackened tongue.

"Wouldst thou," it began in a guttural, mucus-thick voice, "forsake thy life, who with few words might win release for her, and thee, and go in peace, and dwell together far from war, friends of the King? What wouldst thou more?"

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

Sauron.

Melkor's special little Wormtongue of First Age Arda.

Trying to make good with Master by finishing the job he'd failed to do on his own sweet time, in his own lair at Rivil's Well. Kitty caught a rat, and having failed to make it squeal, took it and dropped it at Master's feet. Hoping, perhaps, that fear of the greater evil might compound enough upon his victim to make him give in at last.

And unfortunately, in this as in many cases, the simple persistence of true evil will often win out over light's brief, fierce flair.

And by now, it had been just enough.

The Gorlim who kneels before that throne knows more than just the moment, but he does not think of it. He cannot. Because he knows Melkor is real, and has come to the bar, and through the mist of pain, it's possible this might even be him. He'd have been good friends with Ruin. And it's possible that, out of spite, Ruin might allow the wounds inflicted in Melkor's prison to stay when he wakes up from this scene.

But those considerations are secondary, almost subconscious as they flicker through his mind. Because by now, his pain is great, and his awareness of it is screaming in his mind. He is weary of war, he is hungry, he is cold.

And he thinks of Eilinel (and he thinks of Kelly, of Namo, of Random), and he thinks she might be spared for the price of a lie (and he thinks they might be spared living with his own increased pains for the price of a scripted line, and he thinks maybe this time he can lie), and the shattered voice now answers.

Glaring up in defiance at the Master, ignoring the Servant, though he would happily voice further defiance and a number of profanities only for the sake of shaming him in his Master's sight, he does not, his obscenities held back by the fear of compromising a lie.

"I will tell you," he rasps, "If you swear to me that we will go free and unfettered, to travel where we will, and live as we will, and be left at peace. And take off our bonds, and give us food and rest and warmth 'til we depart when we are able. Say to me these things, Morgoth. Give to me this promise, your word as Lord King, and I will tell you all."

[ten_of_swords]

Melkor leans forward on his throne, built from the bones of those slain in this pit, and smiles with evil beauty at the pitiful Man.

"Thou thrall! The price thou askest is but small for treachery and shame so great! I grant it surely! Well, I wait: Come! Speak now swiftly and speak true!"

His eyes, dark and dangerous, bore into Gorlim's. The Vala's mind presses on Gorlim's, forcing truth. To the Lord of Lies, it was a vain, paltry thing to breathe an untruth. His gleaming gaze, his suffocating mental presence, they will bring out words of truth from his captive.

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

He knew it was coming. (He hadn't realized the power...)

He thought he could fight it. (He tried so hard to look away...)

But now as he searches for the strength of Namo's bond to hold him against Melkor's, as he looks for the threads of his son's dormant powers asleep in his spirit, the black eyes hold him fast, and he realizes all he has is not enough.

"There is no path from any direction that will lead you there."

It could never be enough. Not against a fallen god. For all he is, in the end, is Gorlim.

"Not even a road destroyed or long abandoned. There is nothing that goes close."

Gorlim the Traitor. Gorlim the Unhappy, who spoke once his treason for the sake of love, and speaks now, however unwillingly, for that sake again. For a Vala's power compels him, but what he had never realized is that it could only meet him half way. He had spoken, he had agreed. He had made a bargain expecting the Dark One to keep up his end. Why had he ever expected not to keep up his? Gorlim himself developed a habit of habitual untruth, but the Beorings were by nature men of honor, and Gorlim had never spoken a lie to his Lord or kinsmen. He had only concealed from them the nature of his wandering, and his heart. Out of desperation, he had sought to retrieve the remnants of a life he once had. And perhaps Barahir had known, and understood; for it was known that Eilinel had not fled with Emeldir and the women of Ladros.

"You must go west and south from Rivil's Well. Pass over the mountains to the edge of the moorland, to where the pines give way to birches. There is a lake in a valley, high up from the plateau, where two peaks meet. Its name is Tarn Aeluin. There you will find them."

Gorlim, son of Angrim, who had made a bargain with Ruin, and should have known he could not cheat him. Yet Gorlim had once bourne torture and treason to save what he loved the most, and he does so again, realizing that to play the scene out differently might constitute failure to keep up his end of the deal, and knowing that despite that he had TRIED. He would have changed it if he could, knowing they would have forgiven him in the Bar, even had he spoken his own death. Knowing the preservation of his honor and his Land was more important than coming home alive, because sometimes... sometimes you do what you have to, and that was what made Gorlim a hero. He was fallen indeed, but he had been that once. He might yet be, somehow. Heroes make sacrifices. He would have sacrificed himself to keep Dorthonion alive. Now that he knows he cannot, a part of him does see, even in his horror, that he must sacrifice Dorthonion to keep alive the ones who were his family now.

Yet it is no less a burden to know that the ones he made this choice for will endure. His speech complete, his secrets told, he falls forward onto his hands, yet the broken arm shoots agony into him and with a cry he is thrown to his face.

[ten_of_swords]

Melkor's laugh echoes through the room. "Thou base, thou cringing worm! Stand up, and hear me! And now drink the cup that I have sweetly blent for thee!"

He stood up, stepping down the stairs that led to his throne, towering above all. "Thou fool! A phantom thou didst see that Sauron my servant made to snare thy lovesick wits. Naught else was there."

Melkor kneels down on one knee, tangling his pale, clawed hand into the oily, matted mess of Gorlim's hair, forcing his head up so he can look down into the grey eyes. "Cold 'tis with Sauron's wraiths to wed!" he spits down into the traitor's face. "Thy Eilinel! She is long since dead, dead, food for worms less low than thou. And yet thy boon I grant thee now: to Eilinel thou soon shalt go, and lie in her bed, no more to know or war -- or manhood. Have thy pay!"

With inhuman strength, Gorlim is drawn up and shoved into the arms of two waiting Orcs as Melkor again ascends his throne, speaking quietly with Sauron.

There was a hunting party that needed to be assembled...

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

And just like that, he's passed off, out of mind and unimportant. He who had done so much, for so long, now as quickly forgotten as a dreamless sleep.

The shame has not been lessened by three Ages in hell and a year in a bar. The fear, the horror when Melkor touches him is real and immediate. Time does not by itself change what a person is, and even through love and loss, through trial and trivia, a man may seem to be altered by his experience, but the heart of his soul never will. Nothing changes what a man is, and Gorlim is this. This moment, this treason, this failure. This desperation. It doesn't matter how many times a man might be in his element, and work his soul's purpose. It does not become easier or more trivial an experience.

So the man they drag away is the same man who had never seen his doom, had never dreamed he might die this way. And even still, as he is taken from Melkor's presence, and the fear of looking into the eyes of the Devil Himself grows less, and his mind and his memory recovers, he waits for the vision to end.

He waits for the illusion to be cut off.

Any moment now it would all freeze, like a television-thing when Random pushed that button, and from behind that wall, or from that door, or perhaps from nowhere at all, Ruin would saunter forth, laughing and mocking him just as Melkor had done. He would watch the Adan broken, possibly drag him to watch his Lord and friends butchered (as if he had not seen it as a ghost -- as if he did not see it in his dreams every night -- as if he did not see their faces now and then on strangers in the bar, and see them change before his very eyes to the hollow- blood-spattered disbelief of their deaths). Then, at last, their bargain would be complete, and Ruin will leave him in some wooded patch or in the middle of the bar or out by the lake, bleeding and shattered, and that will be that.

Any moment now.

Suddenly he feels cold air on his stinging back. The icy breath of the Helcaraxe. He looks around desperately. He knows what's coming. Surely, surely it must end now! He squirms and twists about, and his struggles are met on one side with a feral laugh, and on the other with a curse, and from behind a sharp blow between his shoulders that makes him cry out.

"I thought he'd make it easy," a dribbling voice hisses behind him.

The one who had laughed, who held one of Gorlim's arms in a vice grip, did so again and squeezed. "Is it so hard to hold this infant?" he mocked his underling. "Let him squirm. They bleed more that way."

Gorlim looks about, becoming more desperate. (Even now, even now there was still time for them to come for him. Here, alone outside the stronghold, twelve men against three orcs, they could take him and flee. Even now...)

"They're not coming, worm!" laughed an orc. "Not all this way! This is the end."

The end.

He was released with a shove, his arms and legs unshackled, leaving bright, bloody rings on the filthy flesh. The ground was trampled into mud from the comings and goings of armies, the surrounding land dotted with temporary camps, and matted with filth. Even in the Helcaraxe, snow never stayed long on the ground here. What was not warmed by bodies and fire and shit was trampled under metal and claws and hooves.

"Do it quick," muttered the one who had stood on his left, and cursed when he wriggled. "It's damn cold out here."

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

And now Gorlim could see the face of the one who had hit him in the back. He knew now he'd been hit with a sword's hilt. He sways on his feet as the tall, mottle-skinned creature steps towards him. The eyes in that face are dead. No mind resides behind him except the machine that feeds off his Master's will. He looks almost bored as he raises a clawed hand, and sticks a knife into Gorlim's belly.

And the other two laugh at the disbelief on his face, and mumble to him when the weapon is withdrawn and the Man remains standing. The murderer lifts a brow, and what little piece of his mind has survived Melkor's manipulation wonders briefly that even now, the rodent looks him in the eyes. And then thinks -- why should the traitor be ashamed to look at the murderer? We are brothers, in a way.

Save that in a very short while, he will be dead, and I will be having my supper.

Gorlim barely feels the second time the blade goes in, this time under his ribs, slicing into his lung. He barely feels as the laughing orc, in the excitement, hops forward to join the party, his blade digging into the Man's side. And then the third, just to be social, steps closer and buries his dagger to its hilt in Gorlim's chest, missing his heart but slicing his other lung.

All three withdraw at once, and the broken body topples backwards into the leaflined ditch, wherein lie other dead, perhaps his wife among them, and all are rotten, and all forgotten, and the sewage of Angband is thrown atop them. Their graves are marked by a little snow that remains on the opposite bank, and their eulogies are the crass jokes that the soldiers tell in passing -- not too close, for the stench of the dead is sometimes almost as bad as their own.

And now he is alone. The orcs have gone. His neck is twisted at a funny angle. His wounds pour blood. And still the scene continues.

And he begins to laugh. His lips part, bloody, and his chest convulses painfully as his diaphragm pumps against the skeletal ruin of the man's belly. Yet from the flooding throat, no sound comes that may be heard by mortal ears, and any who knew such a sound there was in all existence would have thanked their dark gods that they could not, for it would have deafened their ears to all else that was beautiful, and broken their minds to the sight of the stars. And even the gods do not hear. They are not listening. Not to the sounds of war.

Yet he laughs, and with the last breath in his body he curses himself and his captors, and he curses Ruin (redundant though it is). And he laughs a coughing, strangled laugh, his head thrown back and nearly broken, his blood speckles his lips, tints his nostrils and pours down his face, and his broken hand opens as if to grasp the waiting shadows.

And it ends.

The grey eyes which once had been so full of love and pain now stare blindly. The grey eyes that once were windows into a fierce and desperate soul are blank and lifeless. No hand would come to close them -- no quiet nurse, no mourning wife, no somber soldier. The once kindly face, now sunken and bruised and bloody, would remain frozen in an obscene mask showing the very birth of madness, until some brave foraging thing happened upon them. And the eyes that once had wept, that once had sparkled with joy and sorrow, the eyes that had once been so tenderly kissed, and once brushed their lashes against the cheek of a god, would be devoured as a second thought for a disappointed carrion bird for whom the rest of his corpse was too wasted to bother with for a meal, all tendons and wound-rot.

So dies Gorlim, son of Angrim, traitor betrayed.