Unsettling information from Godric needed my attention. I left him at the hill refuge - I judge it better for him to know nothing more. I made my way towards the ruined lakeside city, Annuminas they call it. As he said, they are there. I can almost scent them.
There is no kind or easy way to do this. I would that it were otherwise. I choose a woman of about my size with faded light hair, harshness etched into her face. Watch and wait until she moves away from the others, alone, a quiet quick struggle til she is mine... I lift her onto my shoulders, bound and silenced, carry her bent-backed futher from her black-robed brethren, up into the lonely hills to the ruin I have selected.
Sat upon the earth she regards me with unconcealled hatred, her vows to the dark alive in her acid stare. I tell her of the futility of noise, that a cry cannot help her. She knows this. I ask her my questions and receive her mute-mouthed contempt.
And so we begin ... I repeat and repeat what I will have of her. Nothing and nothing in her response. I start to strip away her selfhood, her humanity, deliberate step on step. Take it layer by layer from her, from her hatred to defiance, through loathing to fear, horror, pain and anguish. Asking, waiting, asking again and then acting.
We are like a slow unfolding bloody flower blooming in the night, each petal's movement already timed and known before the bud even begins to unfurl. I become her world, like a child unto its mother she becomes attuned to each movement of my eyes and hands as I reduce her to sweat-slicked animal mewlings - to what lies soft and terrified at the heart of all of us.
My face is merciless, I am reduced to nothing by the horror of my own acts. Until finally she speaks - a whispering, tired confession - my face close to hers, close and intimate as lovers drowned and united in the giving and receiving of violence. I release her hands, she knows what will come next, reading me now as well as I do her. I can give her only the gift of men, and silently she assents, helping me to disrobe her so that she will die unencumbered and clean of the dark brethren.
That she does so eases nothing in me. If I had tears I would weep for both of us oathsworn, our vows bringing us to this. I give her as gentle and quick a death as I can. Are my hands guilty because they undertake what the head commands? Oathsworn and duty bound, a hand of Gondor - am I?
I find my way back towards the lake, carrying her robes, her body now under a hurried pile of rock. The bitter chill lake stretches before me, I remember its numbing deadly caress, how I would have drowned if Amlarad had not pulled me to safety. I do not know whether the water will wash so deep now, and I dread the clarity of his eyes.
