And what?” the Balrog murmured, and the soft rue in its tone only stripped bare the cruelty of its truths. “Your bargains are empty, Noldo. As the soldiery might not take their pleasures with you, your freedom is not mine to barter.” We were just friends for a long time, before it led to anything else," says Audrey. "All the same, some people thought I'd just emerged from nowhere and predicted it would never last." Why, Captain?” the deep voice called, and a chorus of snarls accompanied it. “He is a slave, for so we’ve captured him. We cannot take our sport with him?” When Keenan is given a bowl of fruits his ‘eyes are almost burned by what they see’. This suggests that due to his the repetitive, dull and lifeless days his senses became “thirsty” for a stimulus, and when they get it, they overact. This is suggested by the word ‘burned’, as the colours seem to go through his eyes, harming his retina, just as if he was kept in a dark place and then suddenly exposed to light, blinding him. His chaotic reaction is further emphasised by the extreme, seemingly almost exaggerated verbs or adjective for their nouns. Such examples include ‘ecstatic embrace’, ‘torrents of tears’, ‘great rage’ and tears that seem to ‘tear the skin’. These powerful adjectives and verbs suggest his intense experience of the world. He seems to be flooded by these feelings and senses driving him into confusion and madness. This is also proven by his rapidly changing moods, from ecstasy to raging weeping. Keenan claims that ‘the fruits, the colours, mesmerize me in a quiet rapture and spins through my head.’‘Mesmerize’ and ‘rapture’ suggest that he is a prisoner of his senses, almost as if his raging senses rule over his logic and healthy judgement. This makes him go insane and have no control over his thoughts.

Please,” he whimpered, and how he hated himself for it; he hated that he subjected himself to this creature, he hated that he begged for its mercy, he cursed every blind, arrogant, stupid decision that had cast down him so low, but still the words poured from him. “Please, please just let me go… Release me, and… “ Y’hear that, snaga,” a deep voice growled, and an iron-shod boot clipped into the side of Maedhros’ thigh an instant later. “My boys should ‘ave their fun with you. Such troubles we took with you, you might give us a little pleasure in return…” Within the stirrups he rose, he touched his spurs once more to his horse’s flanks and gave the beast its head, and he let the tender night wash over him as they sped away across the plains. Throughout the chapter ‘ Into The Dark’, Keenan goes through some distinct phases of mental states, each caused by a previous one and ultimately by his imprisonment. He uses a various range of strong descriptions to portray his condition, ideas, thoughts and impressions. The unusual syntax used throughout the chapter conveys the states of mind which he goes though, guiding the reader into the prisoner’s world. He is not yours to despoil.” The rumbling baritone of a Valarauka broke through the growls and mutters that heralded it. “He belongs to our lord, and I will see him delivered whole and un-abused, not torn bloody by your snivelling rabble. You answer to me, Dagmur, and I will have my captives treated with dignity, no matter how much it thwarts your desires.”Yet even as that resolution turned in his mind, unbidden anger churned in his blood, and hard he gripped into the edge of the table to still the shake in his fingers. The Oath, that accursed oath sworn in fey mood and wrathful flames pounded in his veins and it renounced all clemency, it thirsted for blood, it crooned for war, but Maedhros would not so easily succumb to its seduction. Strength in arms might not avail his kin in reclaiming the Silmarils; their armies reeled in the wake of his father’s death, they mourned their kindred slain in the battle under the silent stars and wished no more for conflict, and Maedhros would not see the blood of his people further spilled upon capricious whim. The Oath renewed at his father’s deathbed might gnaw at him, and his brothers also; it would cozen patience to careless haste, it would twist sense to base impulse, but he would not fall prey to its demands. All that effort for this miserable pig?” A sneering voice whined before him, and Maedhros started as amid the slurred intonations of misshapen lips, he recognised the corrupt, basal form of archaic Quenya, and the orc’s crude words seared through him. “Nar, should’ve gutted him in the hollow, left him red and gasping with the rest of them.” And so it began. His re-emergence into a world he thought he knew, the world he had left behind, but different now. Not so much because the world had changed, or even because he himself had changed. But because his place in the world had changed. He went into the cell Brian Keenan, an unknown university teacher from Belfast. He then became Brian Keenan, the disappeared. Celegorm’s words turned in his mind, but Maedhros would not allow them to daunt him. For as the ranks of his retinue formed up behind him, as Gaelor loosed his banner and Orellë sounded a triumphant horn to the skies above, as the drum of galloping hooves filled his ears, grim, unyielding resolve settled in Maedhros’ stomach, and it would not be undone. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{

Keenan uses various techniques to convey the feeling of human degradation that he went through during the first period of his captivity. Frenzied hands clutched to him; shrill panic trembled in Maedhros’ throat, anger and terror waged their devastating war within him but through filth-stained lips he screamed, “Stop! Stop, let me go! Let me go!” Keenan's parents are both dead – his father's death was pivotal in his decision to go to Beirut. It was as he carried his father's coffin that he made the decision to leave Belfast, and to seek a new life overseas as a teacher at the American University in Beirut. At the time of the kidnap he was wearing one of his father's shirts, and that connection was a crumb of comfort to him – in An Evil Cradling, he writes movingly about how his dad became "not simply a memory but … a real presence … a presence I could feel more than see, a comforting reassurance that eased the hurt into a deeply filled sadness, yet that same sadness as it became reflective, lifted me". His mother died in 2004 having survived his captivity – something she rarely spoke about, Keenan says. "It was her way," he explains. "When I came home she didn't ask, and I didn't tell much at all. My sisters told me that when I was away she didn't speak much about what was happening. When there were rumours that I might be coming home, though, she knitted me a sweater."

Retailers:

A tangle of voices jeered, and rigidly Maedhros held himself still as their scorn crashed down upon him. Fury swelled in Maedhros’ heart as he saw their lines break into a sprint, the outrage of betrayal squalled in his veins but tightly he gripped to it, he mastered it, and as Fëanor’s son revealed in the fey glory of his wrath he drew his sword, and aloud he cried: “Hold fast! Ortaerë, mehtarnya! Ortaerë!” The Balrog captain’s bellow seemed to reverberate through the very earth, and dread spilled through Maedhros’ innards.