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‘Are you sure your leg is alright?’ Endamir asked as Lómwë finished speaking. ‘Perhaps we should let my brother take a look at it.’ Lómwë waved him off, indicating his leg was fine. ‘Then let’s leave this area, the whole bastion, I think; and go onto the next one. The one nearer the middle of the wall.’
He raised his brows at Lómwë. ‘I didn’t like the sound of that laughter, nor less yet the fact that it suddenly ceased. I can’t tell whether the Elf it came from left or just went quiet and will try to follow us to cause trouble.’ He took a long look into the apparently empty room; his eyes straining to see some clue of the one who had spoken.
‘I do know that whether he be mad or not, I agree with part of what he said. They want lots of help, help they can’t get here – help to find the Seneschal, help from the Seneschal, help from the Diviner – that’s what they really want. But will they like the help they get? I don’t think they will – foolish ones, don’t know what they want…’ He shook his head at the last question - ‘But will they like the help they get?’ ‘I’m already not liking it and we haven’t even found it!’ They picked their way carefully across the strewn stone and broken beams, making their way northward. A chilling breeze seemed to eddy about them as they walked, though the sun was up and shining brightly.
The middle bastion offered no clues or clue-givers to the pair of them. The ceilings of the rooms were all caved in, and much of the walls were in great disrepair. Lómwë and Endamir trudged along the crumbling pathway that led along the eastern wall from one bastion to the next.
The third and last structure still standing, near the northern end of the eastern wall, was still fairly intact. From the outside, they could see the walls of the bastion go up two stories from the top of the wall, and the roof at the top seemed fairly intact. What rubble had fallen around the structure looked as if it had been pushed away somehow from the building, leaving the area about it looking more in order than had been true of the last two places they had looked.
‘This looks promising,’ Endamir remarked as they entered the arched doorway into the structure. ‘It looks as if some one or thing has made some attempt to put this place in order.’ A chill passed up his spine as the persistent breeze seemed to pass close about him. ‘Is it my imagination, or is this cold little wind, following along after us?’ In the empty room, the faint echo of some muffled sniggering passed from one side of the chamber to the other.
‘Is that . . . you, again . . . Elf?’ Endamir called out into the emptiness. And then a little louder. ‘Or are you here, Seneschal? If so we seek your aid.’ Endamir’s words were absorbed into the now deep quiet. His senses were on high alert for any sound or movement . . .
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