[piosenniel]

Endamir addresses the Seneschal

Two rusted torch brackets hung crazily askew on the wall of the short, dark passageway that led to the darkened room just off the landing. Endamir reached up a gloved hand and pushed gently at the first one he had come to. The pitted metal protested as it was moved, echoing loudly in the stairwell. In concert, its fellow bracket seemed to move just barely, but enough to echo its companion’s complaint.

‘And now the fixtures have begun to talk to me,’ he murmured, continuing to follow Lómwë up the stairs. He glanced at his companion’s back, wondering if he had heard them, too. Or whether this was a singular hallucination of his own. ‘Your pardon,’ he whispered to the brackets as he passed them. ‘And here I am answering them!’ he thought to himself.

The room above was large; that is, what they could see of it. Some of the ceiling beams had come down and the pale light from outside filtered in through the layers. Endamir glanced about the enclosure; his eyes darting into the pools of deepening shadow. Walking carefully across the floor to a place where the light flooded in, he stopped there. Fully clothed in the light, he stood waiting for the voice they had heard to speak again.

‘Are you here?’ he ventured after a few silent moments. He took a few tentative steps into the edges of the surrounding shadows, ‘Idrahil? Are you near?’