Gumbart

You see a old dwarf, face caked in blood and grime, hands bound in heavy rusty
shackles, his wrists two festering wounds. Gumbart is wearing dirty rags that
might once have been sturdy travelling clothes, but anything of value has long
been stolen from him. He wears no hat; he has already lost a lot of hair; the
sad remains are encrusted with dirt and excrement. His beard is as thin as to
seem translucent. Gumbarts feet are a bloody swollen mess, several toe nails are
missing, one of the ankles seems to be sprained. From time to time, Gumbart
coughs blood.

***** Erebor Time + Weather Service ******************************************

** Real time is: Mon Aug 30 12:08:15 1999, GMT -8 **
Elendor time is: Late Morning (about 10 AM ) on Highday, 9 April 3018. In the
Spring sky, Tonight the moon will be waxing gibbous. 

****************************************** Erebor Time + Weather Service *****

The Holds of Darkness

The room you have entered spans before you, opening into a circular cavern of
carefully worked walls in the same manner as the Prison Complex on the other
side of the gate. The ceiling goes up very high and to a point far above your
head. The floors are smooth and everything is solid with no joints or seams.
Around this room you see many cubes cut into the walls, each of their sides
being half the length of a Man. Within each of the cubes are shackles, and
covering each is an iron gate, locked and barred. The cubes sit on two levels,
stacked one above another going in pairs around the circle. 

In the center of it all is a shallow bowl cut into the floor where none may
step upon pain of death. Within this bowl is a mosaic of the Lidless Eye,
fashioned in such a way that each of the cells look upon it and from each cell
it appears that the Eye watches them. It's malice hangs like a weight on all
and none can escape it's view.

Gumbart moans.

Sitting up as if from a dream, Brican turns over towards Gumbart, his vision
blurred he mutters in relief, "WE must be free of that gooey tomb, we are
saved, tell me friend gumbart, what can you see, I have a terrible headache and
all I see are blurs."

The ringing of chains and shackles echoes through the vast tomb as the
ragshackles heap in one of the cubes stirs. Beneath caked blood, grime and
greasy hair, Gumbart's eyes look through the iron gate locking him into his
tiny cell. The giant eye stares back with oppressive malice. Gumbart mouthes a
silent moan. Chains clatter as he grips the iron bars. The darkness floods his
empty soul and washes away layer after layer of successes, of fortunes had, of
brighter moments in his life. What remains is an old husk of a dwarf, frail and
shaken, and filled with the dark madness of Dol Guldur. Slowly, Gumbart's frail
and croaking laughter escapes his parched lips. He laughs even louder now,
trying to shake loose the iron bars. "Brican!" he shouts, "We made it at last!"

Hearing the ringing of the chains and shackes for the first time through the
vast tomb, Brican turns to his collegue in dispair. He smiles briefly for a
moment, he shakes his head for a moment as he finally notices some crumbled
blood over his eye, with a shackled hand he reaches up with pain and with a
screach he removes the dryed blooted blood. With this he gives a sigh, "Aye,
the elves I bet, they are known for letting us die in cold hard dungeons, it
must be they."

Gumbart seems not to hear a word; his dry laughter is filling the cave like the
echoes of a thousand old mean coughing phlegm. The omnipresent smell of blood,
excrements and cold sweat paired with the flickering gloom of a few torches
immerses the hall in a suffocating spell death and rot. Seconds or hours later,
who can tell -- down here all is the same, fate has been short circuited and
the wheel of life is running in ever shorter circles -- Gumbart collapses
against the iron bars and starts sobbing. Then he jumps up again and throws his
fould body against the gate, screaming, "Fool! Brican, you were a fool to
thread this path into darkness. And so was I, to trust in you, in me, in all
the others. Don't you remember the orcs anymore? Don't you remember their dark
lord! Our hopes were dust in the rain, our dreams cobwebs in prisons of another
age, our lives now are but the last twitchings of maggots when cruel creatures
slowly rip them appart to see their guts. You are a fool, Brican, and you don't
even know it!"

Smiling towards Gumbart with a hint of hope in his eyes, Brican mutters back
after his rebuke, "Ye think I am a fool? You are the fool gumbart for believing
in old wives tales of dark ones and orcs, they may be around, but they be far
off minding there own business, just like we should be doing. These elves, they
might let us go if ye can convince them we mean them no farm, but better yet
there is still hope that we will leave this place by our own. Ye know better
then I, ye can see, I am for the moment stunned and my vision gone."

You say, "Ah, who is the greater fool, when we are both chained and bound,
wounded and dying, yet not quite dead, our suffering prolongued by our prison
keepers. Ye speak of elves but let me tell you what I can see. There is a great
bowl I see, with a mosaic or some other crude ornament, not very skillfully
executed, as far as I can tell, but there is a magic in it, a great evil. The
mosaic shows a big eye. It shows The Eye staring at each and every one of us.
You feel it not, fool? It is there, the ancient curse that took over Dol Guldur
many years ago, the darkness that engulfed Mirkwood. The elves have lost
control over the forest decades ago. They live at the fringes, close to men and
dwarves. The rest of the woods are enchanted. Durin's curse has crept ever
closer to Erebor, I finally understand it all, the blindness of our
forefathers, the foolishness of our cousins, and my own curse..."

Brican shakes his head in disgust, unwilling to accept his hate the young dwarf
tryes to stumble to his feat. TA first he looses his balance very quickly and
ploughs into gumbart direction, however after using gumbart as a hold, he drags
himself to his his feat, "Aye, a eye you say, well ye must be cursed I tell ye,
ye think you can tell me there be a eye out there, I simply don't believe ye,
ye should know better then to tell wild stories, trying to scare a young dwarf
while he's almost blind."

Gumbart shakes himself loose and curses, "Behold The Eye that is watching us,
Brican, fool! I was a blind fool in the past, but I can see clearly now. You
were a blind fool, too, Brican, but you have not yet reattained your senses.
Wipe your face, open your eyes! Away with the grime! Behold the last days of
your existance, behold the darkness of your fate, behold the wickedness of the
curse that brought you here." Gripping the iron bars again, he wails, "I am
cursed, Brican! Cursed! Cursed! Cursed! Three times cursed and five times a
fool! I was blind but now I can see! Oh how I wish I were blind again!!"
Gumbart claws at his face and tries to drive his fingernails into his eyes,
screaming hoarsly.

With a sad sigh, Brican moves over to the wall where he had woken from a fitful
sleep. He starts to sob for a while, and at long last he turns towards the
screams of Gumbart, "Aye it is seemed you are cursed to be forced to live your
own insanity, ye can't see that not all is doomed, we just have to bargain our
way out of here don't ye understand, none the less, I will leave you in your
self pity and ye can die if ye so wish, I will not give up without a fight I
tell ye Gumbart, ye were a friend once, search deep and bring forth ye
courage."

Time passes, while Gumbart wails, sobs, collapses, mutters curses and insults,
screams, falls back again, and at long last, his energy is spent. He sits down
and stays there, immobile, empty eyes staring back at the eye in the center of
the room. Minutes or hours pass, and still he moves not.