Penned in the House of Healing,
In the Realm of Dorwinion.

   "Áva lave huinen!"

Thus were the last words of my friend ere he was grievously slain... murdered in the nethermost vault of that noisome dungeon in the East. Though they were not entirely his own, but an echo of counsel given to us both in a time far beyond my broken memory. Nor can I, alas, recall whose voice first uttered them to us, though they bring to my mind faint and wistful impressions: the soft spray of an unspoiled cataract in a tranquil vale; a girdle of soaring mountains crowned with stars; gilded roofs and argent floors and burnished brazen doors; the music of bright fountains upon a green sward and the clear, smooth chiming of many bells; a sleek ship with a carven bow sweeping over a billowing cerulean sea; a journey fraught with expectation and apprehension. And so I cherish these words, and by this maxim I shall live the remainder of my days in Middle-earth.

The ministrations of the Dorwinions have restored my stricken body, but the shades of my tormentors yet haunt my slumber; nightmares in which the horrors of my ordeal are all too vivid... unnumbered are the slow arts of wanton cruelty through which prisoners are corrupted and enslaved - which I have both endured and been forced to observe - and though my living memory is ruined, I recall this all in troubled sleep. And so my bitter dreams are beset with the phantoms of ironhanded Orcs and swarthy Men and vile creatures of the Shadow... and the pitiless Wraith, the cruel warden of that evil stronghold. It was rumoured that once he was a great lord among the Easterlings, a king corrupted by Sauron during the Second Age of the Sun, and so forevermore under his dominion... a servant in the realm of shadows. In his white face burned keen and merciless eyes, and he spoke with the voice of death; darkness went with him, and all quailed before his malice, thrall and servant alike. By his fell hand my companion's head was cloven, and at his command I was shackled in iron chains to the gibbet upon which my friend's lifeless body was hanged, so as to witness the sport of the gorcrows in my despair.

My ill-fated comrade... my brother! Alas, it is cruelly unjust that I should recall his bitter end so clearly, yet I cannot recall his very name! That he perished as callous retribution for my refusal to make obeisance to the Dark Lord lies heavily upon my wounded heart... and in my shame I wonder why it was he who was slain and not I? Why was I allowed to endure while his life was forfeit?  I deem I shall never learn the truth while this shroud of forgetfulness lies upon my mind, veiling the very purpose of our journey into that forsaken realm.

O Ilúvatar! Shall I ever remember?