Aglahad and the Dead City (In Tharbad: Volume Three)

21

We woke up in the positions we'd rested in. A deep, dreamless sleep had taken us all. It would be much later that I would realise that none of us had kept watch. I had a memory of a scratching at the doors. Or was that a dream?

After a groggy, wordless breakfast, I gave everyone a sip of miruvor. I had found a small phial of the cordial at the bottom of my messenger bag.

 Finduilas and I pored over the map while Aglahad watched Lofar picking the lock of a chest.

I pointed at the map. "This passage should take us to the Second Deep."

Finduilas nodded. "It is well that we need not walk for leagues through the mountain. This fatigue though: is it some enchantment? Or some vapour in the air?"

"I know not," I said. "But we should all be on our guard."

"Doubly so now."

Across the chamber, there was a creak of hinges. "It's empty!" Lofar grumbled.

Aglahad reached into the chest, brought something out between thumb and fingers. "A few gold coins." I suppose he was trying to look on the bright side.

"Take heart, Lofar," I said. "There are more places such as this in the Deeps."

* * *

A short walk of around three furlongs brought us to the doors of the Upper Great Hall. These had the same design as the Treasury doors but were much taller. Luckily, they were unlocked. Lofar and Aglahad pushed them open and we were flooded by brilliant white light. It took a while for my eyes to adjust. We all walked though the doorway, shielding our eyes. High above, amid the vaulting of the ceiling, hung dozens of large celairivyr from silver chains. The lamps cast deep shadows against the mighty pillars, hewn from the living rock in the likeness of beech trees, trunk, bough and leaf. A thousand memories flooded my mind, not only of Menegroth, in whose likeness this hall had been made, but of all the forests of the wide land of Beleriand.

Save for a single overturned hand-cart, the floor of hall was empty. It stretched off into the distance, a black, polished expanse, seemingly without joint or seam and, stranger yet, free of the rubble and dust we had seen elsewhere.

All was silent but for a light rasping sound, like the metallic creak of a hinge, slowly repeating in a lazy call and response. Along the hall, near the middle, one of the lamps swung slowly on its chain. It seemed in that moment that it had been swinging for a thousand years and would keep on swinging for a thousand more after we left.

"This," I said, "must be the first time this light has been seen in over six thousand years."

Aglahad strode into the Hall and stood directly under the nearest lamp. "Quick, Siri. The map." I unfolded the parchment and stared at it as the locations of an armoury and another hall started to appear on the map. Soon, the markings were glowing with a pale blue light.

 Lofar again opened his little wallet and this time produced a short pencil. I passed the map to Aglahad and he took the pencil from the Dwarf.

"Turn around."

I felt him laying out the map across my back then the tickle of the pencil as he traced the outline of the newly-revealed chambers and notes.

"Are you finished using me as a writing desk?"

"Almost there. Good. Thank you, Siri."

"This here," Finduilas said, tapping the map, "What does it say, Lofar?"

Aglahad lowered the map to the Dwarf's eye level.

"I would translate this word as Under-deep, I suppose. And this: The Hall of the Dead."