6. Backwards and forwards swayed their song

He was resting in the place that his mind had created as a retreat from pain, appearing unconscious to the outer world. Now, he could find the path to the refuge again, following the beacon of the small spark of hope. Only its color changed… It was red now, for it wasn’t his hope anymore – it was the hope born of his blood.

Suddenly, he was choking, the thick smoke that filled his lungs pulled him out of the place, to the merciless reality, where the Mouth of Sauron grabbed his hair roughly, and forced him to open his bleary eyes and look at the face of his tormentor. He did, with a calm and cold look, although he had barely the strength to lift his eyelids, and the light of the torch that the Mouth of Sauron carried hurt in his eyes. Their gazes met, and the Mouth of Sauron averted his eyes after a while, punching his chin hard in the same moment.

He was furious at the man that should have been broken already, should have begged for mercy after telling him all of his secrets. Yet he resisted still, yet he dared to look into his eyes as if he was the one who was interrogating. He let out a vicious snarl, and scowled at the man, whose head fell to his chest, lacking the strength to support it… or was he saving it for later?

He motioned to someone behind him, and four orcs came to sight. Aragorn paid them no attention. He didn’t need to know how they were going to hurt him. He knew he would find out soon and then there would be no reprieve. He didn’t want to think about it now; he had the last moments before it began, and, unbidden, a thought of Argonath came to his mind. The Pillars of Kings… For centuries they have guarded the borders of Gondor, resisting time and weather, the Kings of old in their glory undimmed. He wished he could be like them. Steady. Unbreakable…

Rough hands grabbed his ankles, and chained them to the floor firmly, with similar sharp shackles like the ones that injured his wrists. Aragorn did not struggle. There was no point in it, he saved the little strength he had left and tensed in anticipation of that, what would follow. First, the pull to his arms lessened as they released the ends of the chains that connected the manacles through the circles in the ceiling to the hooks in the wall. Suddenly the pull renewed, much stronger then before, his body was strained to the uttermost, and the shackles dug into his wrists and ankles. He cried out in pain as his muscles screamed in protest, as the strain opened his wounds again, and as it shifted the broken ribs.

The Mouth of Sauron watched as the orcs attached heavy loads to the chains, and a slight smirk played on his lips, as the tension in the man’s body grew, and a cold sweat covered his shivering body. He just stood there, and watched the man grit his teeth in agony. It seemed as though he would be able to watch for hours. After a long while he took a few steps and faced the tortured man.

“So. What about telling me everything you know now? There are many more loads that can be added…”   

The man looked up, the answer evident in his eyes. Mouth of Sauron took a step back. “As you wish…” he hissed.

Aragorn cried out as the pull increased. Sweat dripped off of his forehead, and mixed with blood. He felt his shoulders dislocating, his tendons strained to the breaking point. It hurts… Oh, Valar, it hurts so much! His vision grew blurry, and with every labored breath he groaned through gritted teeth. Long and excruciating time passed before the masked pale face drew nearer again, and it was as though through a thick cloth that he heard the voice, asking, demanding answers, promising reprieve…

And Aragorn knew there would be no reprieve; he would feel the agony of every torturous moment… for how long? Until death claims him… and the Dark Lord knew many arts of delaying it. Yes, and that was good, he tried to convince himself, Frodo needs time… He had no doubts about his answer… and its consequences.

“Never…” he whispered, barely audible, in an exhale of pain.

The world erupted in a fountain of pain. He screamed as the pull increased, reaching the levels of agony he wouldn’t think possible. He screamed as his shoulders dislocated from their sockets, his other joints threatening to follow soon. He screamed as his tendons began to tear. He wasn’t aware of his surroundings anymore, and, after another scream, he passed out…

The Mouth of Sauron watched the entire time, furious at the man’s resistance… and a bit fascinated by it. It was a challenge – to break him, make him speak… and to not kill him before he does. The black Númenorean liked challenges. Now he would not allow him this reprieve! He would make him feel every moment, to the border where human body looses consciousness in unbearable pain – and beyond! He gave a short order, and the orcs left the cell, and in a while they returned with the armfuls of black wood.

They made a bonfire from a few logs in front of the unconscious man, and the Mouth of Sauron ignited it with a torch. The wood caught on fire immediately, and burned slowly, with a short dark flame that twisted and flickered in sickening shapes. The unnaturally thick black smoke rose from the wood, reaching the prisoner’s face.

Aragorn coughed violently, his chest aching with the spasms like knife-stabs beneath his ribs. The smoke ripped him out of unconsciousness, and anchored him in his body, in the centre of pain, where his every muscle begged for release from the pull. He moaned, and shut his eyes firmly against the stinging smoke and the waves of agony. No…Frodo…Argonath…it hurts!  it hurts so much…Argonath...  steady…oh Ada, it hurts!... no…steady… unbreakable…   

The pain did not lessen for but a moment, and the smoke did not allow him to pass out, nor retreat into himself. It made him feel every excruciating second in its cruel intensity. His surroundings ceased to exist, leaving him in his own universe of pain. It was more a feeling then his failing senses that told him that his tormentors had left, leaving him alone in the darkness, with the loads that strained his tortured body, and the burning fire that anchored him in it. steady… unbreakable… Ada! please…

Tears of pain ran down his cheeks, and breathing was more and more difficult, he longed for a gulp of clear air instead of the sharp, choking smoke that filled his lungs. The heat from the fire was rising and blistering his skin, making the thirst unbearable. His throat was painfully dry and his lips parched, he felt as if molten metal circled in his veins instead of blood. Ada…

He looked at the dark fire and for a brief moment it changed before his eyes, he was in Rivendell again, and this was the fireplace in the Hall of Fire. Songs rang in the air, sweet and wistful like only the elven songs could be…  He felt a gentle hand stroke his cheek, the hand of his foster-father, and he was young again, he was Estel…

The next labored inhale of the sharp smoke brought him back to reality, to Barad Dûr, to Mordor, to pain… He didn’t know how long he had been there already, every second felt like eternity. And there was nothing to distract him from the pain. The fire was unclean and malicious, not the ever-burning fire in Rivendell. But he is Estel, still… And amid suffering, in the centre of the raging storm of hatred and malice, burning with fever and unspeakable agony, he began to sing.

No voice came from his parched throat; he desperately needed every gulp of air through the smoke for his aching lungs. He sang in his mind, the elven words that came on their own, imprinted deep in his memory, the words that he heard uncounted times in the Hall of Fire…

 A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chared palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon!*

O Elbereth! There was still something fair in this world, although he wouldn’t see it anymore… The stars wandered the velvet night sky, and the trees grew tall and fair in Lothlórien, the leaves that do not wither, but turn to gold. Tall and proud stood the towers of Minas Tirith, the city of the Sea-kings, shining in the gathering darkness. Never more would he behold these sights, but the light might yet prevail, and the others would relish their beauty…

At the end of the song he wavered, the agony threatened to overwhelm him, but he began another song, the Lay of Lúthien that was imprinted not only in his mind, but in his heart: it was the song that he sang when he first met Arwen under the white birches in the Elrond’s garden, mistaking her for the embodiment of his song. He remembered her eyes that shone like stars in the evening above the hill of Cerin Amroth. She would sail to the West and bear their love to the Undying lands, the memory of what could have been… Arwen vanimelda, namárië!

Then he sang of Eärendil as the song that Bilbo composed came to his mind. He had asked him for help with the verses… it seemed ages ago. In pain, he thought of his ancestor’s star, sailing upon the skies, looking over the shadowed Middle-earth. Did Eärendil see him in his suffering? Did he know that the last of his mortal son’s line hung dying alone in the Dark Tower? There were no stars that shone in Mordor… Aragorn remembered how he insisted that Bilbo write a green stone into the poem. The same stone he received from Lady Galadriel. Elessar, Elfstone… The name was foretold to him, yet never would he come to bear it. The green stone was in his thoughts, and the shadows lessened when he looked through it.

For many hours, he sang to forget the agony surging through his body, and battled with the darkness enveloping him like black smoke. For many hours of terrible pain, he sang in his mind, and only his ragged breathing and inaudible moans revealed that he was conscious through it all. Many hours passed, but to him, they were ages, and the old legends of songs unfolded in their own time, while he suffered in the dark cells of Barad Dûr.  

TBC