[Belin]

Delivering the papers to the Butler had slowed her down, but he’d insisted the she give them to him before he rendered up the key, and Celumëomaryu was in no mood to argue with him. She hurried up the stairs and allowed herself, just this once, to slip through the wall. It was a privilege she was soon to relinquish. She stood still for a moment, savoring the anticipation, and moved toward the cell.

She was surprised to find the body standing, apparently holding itself up against the bars and…speaking to Calimiel. Speaking in a voice that reminded her of one she’d heard long ago. Anna’s voice. Celumëomaryu suddenly leapt through the bars, knocking the body to the ground by the same force of will she’d so often used to open doors and count money. The doors, however, had seldom found her standing on them, icy and immobile, staring downward with a stare to match Maladil’s own. “You!” she hissed. “Traitor! Trickster! Thief! You’ll leave me what’s mine. Now!”

Somehow, Anna smiled faintly. “No good, wandering spirit. She’s gone. If I leave this body now, it will die.”

An appalling, bonechilling cry escaped from Celumëomaryu, and she was dimly aware of kicking the body, of pushing it toward the wall as well as she could, of kneeling in an attempt to scratch its face, of finally fleeing it to stand outside the cell and wonder at the strange hysterical laughter that seemed to be her own. Calimiel was watching her.

“And you,” said Celumëomaryu, facing her with a new and deep hatred “you’re twice the traitor she is. For you, I have kept—I have—I—“ Speech failed her. She suddenly understood Maladil’s destructiveness. But there was nothing to throw here.

Very well, then. She’d be revenged, all the same. With a sudden, terrible smile, she pulled out the key.

“For you, I had brought a key. But you’ve given away something of mine. I believe I’ll keep this treasure. After all, I have only one left.” She heard the hysterical laughter again and hoped it was not hers. She had lost enough of her dignity already. “Will you stay in a body? Stay there then!” Her eyes rested on Anna. “As for you,” she said, and her voice leapt suddenly into a strange, wavering music:

You are no one’s daughter
And you’ll grow old again
In the prison of this person
And the shackles of its skin.

“And there you’ll stay, centuries more for all I care. Perhaps I’ll watch. I have no other haunt left, now.”

But Anna had picked herself up, and was smiling an obnoxious and confident smile. “You’re wrong,” she said. “Maladil will never let us starve.”

Celumëomaryu snorted gracelessly. “Maladil? What do you expect from him? This key is mine. I’ve died for him already; I owe him nothing now.”
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Song stolen from Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn and horribly twisted and corrupted by me.

[ January 09, 2003: Message edited by: Belin ]