[Gilthalion]

"Arise, subjects of the Woodland Realm," said Thranduil. "For I see that you now recognize the wisdom of our laws, and the consequences of breaking them. I have heard that some think that Justice should be blind, but were that so, then we could all simply live under the laws in blind obedience and ruthless judgment. Such is not our way. I have been acclaimed your king, so that Justice may be tempered with Mercy, and Punishment meted out according to the spirit, and not the mere letter of the law.

"So it is that Mercy restrains the hand of the law, and Justice is rendered not in blindness, but in Pity. Even so, there must be consequence to your actions, Tinuiel. You were right to take this prisoner first to the Healers, but he should have been searched and disarmed, and kept under guard, rather than brought here to this chamber, where he might carry out the very plot that you heard from his lips.

"Lax, I say! Lax and unready are we, though all but the youngest of us still remember the Necromancer of Dol Goldur. Now word comes that there is evil in Mirkwood again, and now comes into the heart of our realm mortal trespassers held in our dungeons and an elf under bewitchment of the torturers of the Barad Dur.

"How shall I rule in such times as these?" asked Thranduil, rhetorically. "Tinuiel, you will tend this prisoner until he is well, and you will report to Legolas what he has to say. As for your prisoner, I have means to make him say more than he otherwise might.

"Gayahithwen! Run to the stores and fetch for me the little black cask. Hurry!" ordered the king. The quiet elven maid did as she was bade. The entire time she was gone, Thranduil looked upon Mornovarion with something less than pity in his regard. The tortured elf could not return his gaze.

"The cask, my lord," said Gayahithwen. She had returned with surprising speed but was not at all winded.

"Give it to Tinuiel," said Thranduil. "In it are deep draughts from the headwaters of the black stream that runs through Mirkwood. Its waters were enchanted with sleep and forgetfulness long ago. You will take Mornovarion here and prepare for him a drink. As his wounds are healed, he will sleep. And he will talk. And he will forget his tortures and the power of their bewitchment will fall from him. Your sentence, Tinuiel, shall be to listen to his every dreaming word. Legolas will then tell me what you have learned, and if there be any importance in it."

Tinuiel bowed gracefully, relieved that her error had not been corrected more sternly. She gratefully took the small cask from Gayahithwen.

"Think you that you have received a light punishment, Tinuiel?" asked the king, grimly. "You may think otherwise, listening night after night to the nightmares of Mordor. How long you are so sentenced, I cannot say. And when they have run their course, you will be the one to tell Mornovarion what he has forgotten and what he has lost. Yet someone must do this, for the sake of our Woodland Realm. Let none here think you have been treated with especial mercy, for the dreams that Mornovarion will forget will yet be a shadow upon your mind until the darker Shadow that first cast them is no more. This is not a punishment I impose, but a doom that I forsee."

Then the beautiful elven maiden realized that her duty was more severe than she had realized.

"You, Mornovarion, I do not hold blameless," said Thranduil, turning his attention back to the prisoner. "All know that the evil we choose is not justified by any ends, however noble. You have chosen evil, though you seem broken by the torments of the Barad Dur. Would any in this hall have done better, in your stead? None can say, and may we none of us ever face such a test."

Anarya looked up hopefully, but the next words of the woodland king were hard but just.

"It is only your case that I must consider now, for none of these others have been tested and found wanting. It is you who lifted his hand against the peace of this realm, and you who must suffer its justice. When you are healed, you will not remember what has passed. However long your torment, however long your self-deception, whatever memories or lies your mind has held since you were captured, these will be washed from you by the black draft of the enchanted waters. But there will be a price. When you awaken, you will seem as a mortal man, aged and weakened, your life force faded and diminished. The first face you see, the first voice you hear, will be Tinuiel's. And with a clear mind you will learn how you have betrayed yourself to the Shadow, and became in thought, if not in deed, a slayer of your kindred and a traitor to the very village you would fain have saved.

"Your punishment," said Thranduil, "will be to live with the knowledge of what you became. Foresight is upon me this day, for I see that ere all is done, you can redeem your honor, though at a cost I will not name. May it be that grace will be given you to pass the test, if ever you are tested again. More than that I cannot say. Take him from my sight."

Two of the guards took the prisoner between them back to the abode of the healers and Tinuiel followed, her beauty already haunted by the darkness she would soon face. Now the king turned his attention to the Dark Elf who had fought with Mornovarion.

"And now I would hear from you," said Thranduil. "Another breaker of our laws, and yet one to whom I owe a debt. Perhaps there is little business here for me, for already I am inclined to pardon your offense. But I would learn who you are and why you are here, ere the formality of this proceding be concluded."