[Envinyatar]

Orëmir stood at the entrance to the tunnel. Lindir had already rushed into the dark maw of it and was at once lost to sight. For a moment Orëmir considered following after the manic Elf, but his common sense told him that while Lindir might know the ins and outs of these caverns, he did not.

He stepped back a few paces, into a pale shaft of light that pooled at the rear of the grotto. Dropping his pack from his back, he fished through one of the side pockets, looking for the tapers he kept there. He used them in his work when someone had fainted. The smoke from a singed feather held beneath the nose was oft times all that was needed to bring round the patient. ‘Yes, there they are,’ he said to himself, his fingers passing from the soft collection of feathers to the cool, smooth sides of the tapers. ‘Now where’s the flint?'

His fingers fumbled with the flint and steel he had stored there also, and soon he had a bit of a spark going in a pinch of dried moss. Dipping his candle’s wick into it, he lit it and soon had it secured in one of the little candle-lanterns tucked into another pocket on his pack

Orëmir shouldered his pack once again and proceeded into the tunnel, his little lantern throwing a faint beam before it. The floor of the tunnel was crowded with a thicker layer of bones than the grotto. They, too, crunched beneath his feet, but this time his feet did not sink down enough to touch the corridor’s stony floor. Beyond the feeble light was deep darkness and silence save for his footsteps. No voice whispered along the way, nor was there the chill breeze he had felt before.

‘It is Lindir that draws these phantasms; he is their lodestone. I wonder if it were so when he was whole and living in the fortress. Or is it only now because his mind and spirit are disquieted.’ A number of hesitating steps brought him at last to the end of the corridor. Holding up the lantern, he could see the outline of a massive wooden door. Lindir, it appeared, had forced the rusty bolt open and gone into whatever chamber it protected.

Setting his shoulder firmly against the door, Orëmir pushed with all his might against it. It budged only a little, making a small gap, three fingerwidths at the most. Orëmir held the little lantern near the narrow opening and tried to peer in above it. There was a high mound of various sized bones and skulls that had flowed up against the door, it seemed and blocked its opening. From somewhere near the door, he could hear a voice, Lindir’s he thought, whimpering a repeated muffled plea.

‘Varda protect us in this realm of shadow!’ he could hear the Elf call.

Orëmir’s mind raced, wondering how he could get Lindir from behind the stubborn door. In the state Lindir was in, he wondered if he might play upon his altered senses. He moved the candle-lantern up and down the narrow slit a number of times, sending a signal of light, he hoped, into the darkness beyond. Then pushing his mouth against the opening, he called out to the stricken Elf.

‘Lindir! The Kindler couldn’t come herself. She’s sent me in her stead with a light to guide you.’ He moved the beam of light up and down the opening, trying to signal his trapped companion. ‘Come toward the bright light, here on the other side of the door! And shove back the bones and skulls in your way as you do so.’

He listened closely for the sound of someone moving closer.

‘The light, Lindir! Come towards it!’ he called again.