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Chapter Text

Mairon went to Mount Doom to forge his One Ring and he found that it was…lonely. Control, yes, he needed control, and power, yes, he needed power, because without these he couldn’t create the perfect, orderly world of which he dreamed (his orders, obviously). But it was just…

It had been pleasant, working with the Gwaith-i-Mírdain these last 400 years. It had been a reprise of the glorious company-in-creation that he’d had once upon a time in Aulë’s forges, before he found greater purpose with a greater master. It was disordered, yes, but now and then the hammers struck in time and the ideas shouted across trestle tables clicked together, and a metaphorical butterfly flapped its wings and the world changed.  

And at the center of it was Celebrimbor Curufinion, who was… who was…

His One Ring could wait, he decided, turning away. At least until they’d made Three for the Elves—and why would he risk upsetting a power base he already had, rather than strengthen it some more? This was Fëanor’s grandson and a city of Noldorin crafters. A dwarf had convinced Celebrimbor to include stylized Silmarils in the city’s ornate front gate! He—Gorthaur, Mairon, Annatar, whatever—had spent so long building trust and power in Eregion. It would be easy to point it in a more useful direction. (And maybe at the center of the pattern he was building, instead of One ring there could be Two, as the Sun and the Moon—one predominant, obviously, but the second ever-supportive? It was worth at least some consideration…)

He returned to Ost-in-Edhil and sought Celebrimbor out first thing, as had become his habit. He found the elf with many others in the large jewelsmithing workroom, and smiled easily as he walked in, because it was pleasant indeed: the strike of hammers and the tested tensile strength of wires, the rhythmic rise and fall of voices, the flash of lights on faceted gems. There was order in a well-practiced group as much as in a hierarchy—though there was a strongest chord in this symphony, for there in the middle of it was Celebrimbor, just where he ought to be as three followed two followed one. Annatar (as he was, here) smiled with the perfect satisfaction of homecoming.

That evening, Celebrimbor invited Annatar to his rooms and said, “I should tell you–  I’m sorry, I should’ve told you earlier—well, I barely could have! But I could have been less paranoid, and waited…”

“Tyelpë,” Annatar said, amused, “what are you talking about?”

(Tyelperinquar was usually an insult, because Celebrimbor had chosen in Nargothrond his language and his allegiance, and anyone who now called him otherwise was throwing an epithet of kinslayers in his face. His childhood nickname was used with trusted affection by maybe five people left in Middle Earth.)

Celebrimbor said, “You’ve been stranger than usual recently, and you’ve never been honest about why you are here. So I did not trust you—maybe I still shouldn’t! But I saw your face when you came into the workshop today. So it’s really only fair that you know, that while you were gone, I…”

He reached into his pocket and drew out three rings of power, real Power, crafted in perfect harmony with Eru’s Great Music for the hands of Elves, to resound in that Music and the world it made. They were clearly Celebrimbor’s own work and his alone, and Annatar didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed them before because, revealed, they blazed. They Sang.

Annatar (Gorthaur, Mairon, ‘Sauron’ to the particularly rude) burst out laughing. He put his hand over the Rings in Celebrimbor’s open palm, because how could he not reach for such beautiful, powerful, marvelous things? And he leaned over them to kiss on the lips the most beautiful, clever, alarmingly insightful, astonishingly (divinely) creative, marvelously bright-burning thing in the room.

- - -

The most beautiful, clever, alarmingly insightful, astonishingly (divinely) creative, marvelously bright-burning, allergic to the concept of conquest, or even some LIGHT coercion and usurpation, thing in the room. In all of Arda, possibly! The most Annatar could convince these stubborn elves to do was expand their trade of crafts with neighboring kingdoms, earning respect and winning some power in others’ increasing dependence on Eregion’s skilled labor. Yet when he tried to solidify that power with some discreetly unbreakable contracts and treaties, Celebrimbor literally banished him from the country! When Annatar had been perfectly understanding and accommodating of Celebrimbor’s personal refusal to be bound in such a thing!

(But Celebrimbor was the one who came chasing after him to apologize, and acquiesced to contracts the breaking of which would automatically invite Annatar’s direst curses of ill luck and depreciated property, so long as no direct inhibition of free will was involved—merely enlightened self-interest and fear of divine wrath. So who won that round?)

- - -

Maybe there were points where he could have pushed harder… But even imperfectly guaranteed trade was no petty thing, to those who could understand and manipulate it, especially from the undisputed apex of art and invention on the continent. The growth of empires (well-controlled!) is one of history’s great patterns, and it need not always be done with clumsy force! 

Though force certainly helps—as the Men of Númenor increasingly proved, over the years. Yet even the Númenoreans used lamps, compasses and blasting powder from Ost-in-Edhil, fashioned jewelry in this style or that…including a particularly precious Ring or two, functioning just as intended: enabling great works and easy communication between far-flung peoples! War was so messy anyway. Without it, neat fields and orchards grew where there once had been wilderness, and even forests could be divided by clean-cut roads. (There was some deep, complex order in Yavanna’s and Oromë’s untamed domains, but Annatar didn’t have enough time for such refinement yet. Any sort of growing thing was quite wild enough, thank you.) 

Celebrimbor remained opposed, from a combination of natural inclination, determined principle, and traumas in his youth, to open seizure or overt expressions of power. And out of what was definitely just raw stubbornness, he continued to defer to Gil-galad in matters of governance. But he also helped Annatar rearrange first the streets and zoning of Ost-in-Edhil, then roads across all the lands west of the Misty Mountains, into something more satisfyingly geometric and facilitating of domestic and international trade. They even adjusted a variety of watercourses, from the River Baranduin to the tributaries of mighty Anduin—though never the Anduin herself. Now there was a river stubborn enough to rival the Sirion! 

So Annatar was content enough with their progress.

- - -

“Would you like to marry me?” Celebrimbor asked, exactly one millennium after Annatar first arrived in Ost-in-Edhil.

YES! screamed approximately 95% of Annatar’s being—greedily, triumphantly, in glory. He had long-since decided that two central, entwined Rings was the optimal way to rule—he wouldn’t even be able to fully master the Three without Celebrimbor, as Celebrimbor alone had wrought them! Annatar hadn’t been the one to propose—he wasn’t certain Celebrimbor was ready yet, ready to embrace the destiny that was clearly theirs for the taking. But if Celebrimbor was the one asking, was the one offering himself to Annatar’s glorious vision… So much was already in place, they just had to reach out—together!—and take it—

The other 5% remembered that Celebrimbor had a natural apathy toward power over others, enhanced by an illogical fear of holding it, particularly the domination the Rings could best facilitate. Even if the end goal was obviously good. The unfortunate Incident with the unbreakable contracts had showed that. And he still held countless griefs and grievances of the First Age, notably including the torment of Maedhros, the fall of Tol Sirion, and that universally embarrassing affair involving Finrod Felagund and others. And that, above all, while Celebrimbor had long-since guessed that Annatar was no true messenger of the Valar, and in fact that he’d had…a hand or two in Melkor’s glorious conquest of Beleriand… (The resident Maia of the Bruinen, as they’d shifted her banks, had shouted several furious things about the “despoiler of my sister Sirion” before Annatar managed to discorporate her)… 

Ost-in-Edhil was a city of second chances, where thrice-kinslayers carved stone alongside survivors of Doriath and Sirion. But Celebrimbor was as proud as his forefathers and only a little less temperamental, though he controlled both far better, and he trusted by choice rather than by instinct. He was going to be so angry if Annatar didn’t tell him the truth at least of his plans, before their spirits were welded together in eternal harmony. Celebrimbor didn’t crave control, but he hated to be drawn into situations where he had none. Worse, if anyone would react to intimate connection to an Ainu by immediately prying at their entire knowledge of reality, including personal history, it was Celebrimbor Curufinion. And if anyone could then, in fury at perceived betrayal, invent a way to defy Eru Iluvatar Himself and divorce said Ainu, it would also be Celebrimbor.

100% of Annatar refused to risk fumbling this chance.

“Yes,” he said immediately. “But we’ll have to go out of the city to do it, somewhere with nobody else around—Melian’s technique wasn’t arrived at by chance.” (True, even! Re-fashioning himself into some sort of permanent[ish] form to safely marry an incarnate was going to be…interesting.)

- - -

“There’s something I should tell you,” he said, once they were alone together in a starlit glade in the southern Misty Mountains. He thought about the full potential of the Rings and clarified, “Two things.” He thought about the discreet realm of orcs still tucked into Mordor, kept carefully in developmental stasis except for weaponry advances for the past several hundred years. “Three things.”

- - -

“WHAT?"

- - -

When Melian stole her Elvish would-be-husband away to a secluded glade, Annatar thought sourly, she got to spend 200 years making slow love to him. He got alternately yelled at and violently ignored for a whole year, stabbed twice in a way that would’ve been lethal to a true incarnate, non-lethally struck thrice more, and nearly stabbed, bludgeoned, or otherwise had violence done to him several more times. Only by dint of Annatar’s spectacular persuasive arts did Celebrimbor not storm home and attempt to raise some sort of army against him, rather than stay and hash out this completely unnecessary argument.

- - -

Celebrimbor still liked him, though. Still loved him, even.

“Fuck,” Celebrimbor said aloud, knocking his head back against a tree. 

It really failed to express the depth and complexity of his frustration with all of this.

- - -

“…You did stay, though.”

Annatar blinked at him (he’d gotten so accustomed to incarnate expressions, in 1,000 short years). 

“Of course I stayed.”

“You could’ve left at any time these last six hundred years since I made the Three. Forged your One and started your monstrous empire.”

“My goal isn’t empire,” Annatar snapped, not for the first time. “And I am older than the concept of time. I can spare a few petty centuries to achieve my ends. And as I have explained to you at length now, Tyelperinquar, I don’t want One central Ring—I want Two. I want you, at my side!”

“Well, I…don’t.” Celebrimbor was tired, yet his spirit was as mithril-hard self-determined as always. “Annatar, I am never going to want that.”

“Well, I’m not going to do it without you!”

Celebrimbor said nothing.

“...Fuck,” said Annatar (who hadn’t really thought of himself by any other name in centuries).

It utterly failed to express the depth and complexity of his frustration with all of this.

- - -

Annatar went back to Mordor. He bred more orcs, he crafted weapons of real Power, he sent envoys in all-new guises to far-flung kingdoms primed to accept Eregion’s dominion should it choose to exert itself even a little. He offered an alternative.

He didn’t watch Celebrimbor from afar at all. Almost at all. Why should it matter to him if the elf was wandering the wilderness, sometimes weeping, sometimes building elaborate architectures of small stones, or scrawling theoretical mathematical formulae in the dirt like unintended love letters because his mind simply could not stay still? Why should he care if sometimes Celebrimbor stopped mid-stride with a huff of self-recrimination and turned toward the nearest city or village or petty encampment, then at the last second ducked out of sight of anyone who might ask where he’d been or even who he was?

He did look in on Eregion in general, and Ost-in-Edhil in particular. They were his as much as they were Celebrimbor’s, by now. The canal project was proceeding smoothly. The new gold mine was just as productive as anticipated, and the goldsmiths alternating between jewelry in the new, venous fashion, and experiments with petty lightning. Popular gossip concerned bets on whether it would be a full 200 years before—

Annatar– Mairon turned his attention back to the south. He had sweet bargains to offer foolish mortals (he was done trying to woo Elves). He had armies to build and plans of conquest to refine. He had his own grid of heat and light to lay out, driven by the endless fires of Oroduin—how beautiful! How orderly! What perfectly controlled power, tightly in his grasp! 

Above all, Celebrimbor’s hesitation meant that three lords (and ladies, etc) of Elves and seven lords of Dwarves and nine lords of Men were still wearing his perfectly interwoven Rings, which meant this was the perfect time to forge… 

He had so much to do, all of it unexpectedly, unspeakably dull without the infinitely elaborate, naturally developing patterns of brightly curious minds, and one in particular, that he’d come to know so well.

- - -

Mordor was nearly ready for war. Its allies were making their own secret preparations. A– Mairon went north to personally review the state of his orcish enclaves hidden in the Misty Mountains. Woe betide anyone who got in his way!

- - -

“If time truly isn’t a constraint, you won’t mind continuing as we have been, slowly but steadily, until this world is as blissful as that which we left behind—and better! Like we always said! Is that not well-ordered enough?”

“Surely you can see that a few decades, at most centuries of unhappiness is worth it for a world of joy forevermore in its aftermath! Would you sacrifice the betterment of your people, of all the people of Arda whom you claim to represent, on the altar of your Fëanorian pride?”

“Would I? Would you! I can see why Aulë let you go, because you are like an anxious apprentice—eager to sacrifice quality for speed, forevermore, because you fear that you cannot finish the great work otherwise!” 

- - -

“You are the most frustrating creature Eru ever made!”

“No, you!”

“Fine, then!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

- - -

“Also, we are recalling all of the Rings, and destroying them. I will not be party to this— I will not even be party to this temptation. Including the Three.”

“I will not let you harm yourself like that, Celebrimbor.”

“I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t take me for my grandfather! I will be fine.”

“ You will not!”

“… I will hurt, but I will recover. What would’ve happened if your precious planned One was destroyed, anyway? Or your ‘Two’? Did you ever think of that?”

- - -

“I still plan to change your mind,” Annatar informed him.

Celebrimbor said tenderly, “I can honestly think of no way I’d rather spend all the days of Arda than trying to change yours.”

Annatar kissed him.

- - -

It was, in fact, very ‘interesting’ to diminish himself such that he could join with a common fëa without destroying it. Not that Celebrimbor was common! And Annatar was surprised to find himself feeling little ‘diminished’ when it was done, but rather condensed, diffused, stripped and of course augmented (it was nigh impossible to describe in languages other than Valarin).

Anyway, they only set about an acre of trees on fire.

- - -

Some time later, Celebrimbor and Annatar, both missing from Eregion for nearly sixty years now, arrived without warning in Lindon, and requested an immediate, private meeting with Gil-Galad.

(Gil-Galad before Galadriel, they’d decided, for the sake of not being immediately attacked.)

“First,” Celebrimbor said, “I would like to formally announce to my king, and also personally announce to my cousin, that we got married. No, don’t congratulate us—you’d only regret it in a moment. But please note, however it may matter, that I married Annatar after hearing what he’s about to confess to you.”

He turned to his new husband and gestured pointedly for him to speak.

Chapter Text

So, first jot down that when Celebrimbor and Annatar disappeared into the woods in SA 2241, literally zero people were surprised when they came back married. All surprise was reserved for a) it only took 59 years, and b) the whole…Sauron thing.

By this time, Ost-in-Edhil was the center of a thriving, technology-supported soft power empire of trade and culture. Celebrimbor was not, to be clear, unaware of this. But they weren’t doing anything by force; they weren’t even doing anything underhanded with currency exchanges or targetted cultural assimilation; they certainly weren’t harming any native landscapes—changing and cultivating, yes, but in accordance with natural biomes, in consultation with local spirits and people… They shared what they made if not freely, then cheaply: lamps to light the night! Sophisticated, long-lasting systems of sewage, roads, and agricultural aqueducts! The finest jewels, gowns, statues and every other luxury of art you can imagine! And, yes, assorted more dramatically Powerful works of craft! Eregion, and ever-shining Ost-in-Edhil at its center, was simply where it was at, and everyone wants to be where it’s at.

If ever they flexed their power, it was for rules like “Eregion doesn’t trade with slave-holders.” This did, in fact, hold back the more forcefully growing Númenorean Empire, the other node of where it was at. The lords of Númenor didn’t love to pay their field-workers, much less their galley-rowers.

But the thing about issuing a general international announcement along the lines of, “We are recalling all Rings of Power, Palantiri, and other ‘magical’ works of Class 3 and above, because someone introduced a major flaw into the structural enchantments; for more information contact Annatar, who will explain everything unless he wants to sleep in the courtyard”…

(“That would set us back at least a thousand years!” 

“We are doing this right or we’re not doing it at all! Look what we’ve built with a Star of Fëanor on the gate—do you think yourself not up to the challenge of recovering your reputation?”)

…The thing about issuing that sort of announcement, and then clarifying honestly when requested, is that it does a real hit to your soft power. The general results were these:

• Elves throughout Middle Earth, from sailors on Lindon’s West-facing shores to the Sindar-descended fields-folk of Dorwinion, from the strange ice-walkers of the far north to the strange desert folk of the far south, collectively lost their shit infighting for about two centuries. Many of them personally remembered the evils wrought by the Lieutenant of Angband and Lord of Werewolves, or knew the deeds done to their parents and people. Mostly they fought with words, trade and diplomacy, rather than with swords and sieges, but the conflict was little less violent for that. A general trend was everyone in Eregion shouting furiously, then turning around as one and snapping that this was clearly their problem and everyone else should back off. Nobody else took that well.
• Words really cannot express how angry Galadriel specifically was about all of this—Galadriel who had founded Eregion before being pushed from power by Celebrimbor’s pride and newly-arrived Annatar’s maneuvering; Galadriel sister of Finrod Felagund whom Sauron had slain in his dungeon, and Angrod and Aegnor who had died in the Battle of Sudden Flame which he’d strategized and engineered; Galadriel who had worn the great Ring Nenya for 600 years and who couldn’t stand to be played for a fool.
• Among Dwarves and a majority of continental Men, the more common reaction was, “Okay, that’s bad, obviously; we’re going to be side-eyeing you for a while, now, and demanding an honest, penalty-free rewrite of several key contracts and treaties… But also it kind of seems like the Elves are re-fighting millennia-old wars (again), and we’re concerned that the Palantir network gets running again ASAP. And the aqueducts in West Harad still aren’t fully installed, and what about the jewelry trade, and wasn’t our queen going to get more of those magical Sun- and star-powered lights—oh, we can finally go cleanse Mordor, though? Good.”

(“It’s a valuable, essentially self-sustaining military reserve that isn’t harming or even inconveniencing anyone—” 

“Absolutely not, Annatar! What in the name of Eru did you think I’d say to this? Have mercy and let them die!”)

• The Númenoreans, with their unique blend of Elvish historical knowledge and very Mannish ambition, shifted quicker than anyone anticipated from “our friendly business rivals in Eregion :)” to “Elves are blind and corruptible at best, and there’s no evidence that they’re not all actively evil! Let’s start taking slaves to really fuel our growth.”

- - -

Another millennium or so passed.

- - -

The land once called Mordor, now Calador, was still Annatar’s personal demesne, though it had officially been independent since the “revolution” in 3142. Nobody but Celebrimbor, and a couple of Celebrimbor’s worse cousins whom he’d insisted on telling, needed to know the effect of the crown jewels on the "free" will of its beloved new sorceress-queen. (She'd agreed first; Celebrimbor had insisted). After a few experiments, the realm was now a neatly ordered, peaceful farming country with weather directed through the massive lamp/celestial power converter atop the tower on its northern plain. (Some of the Mirdain had tamed lightning on a large, mechanically useful scale, using magnetism and Fëanorian techniques of light-collection… Annatar had smothered a twist of ironic nostalgia as he first sparked the great Lamp to life.) The fields were worked mostly by Men, whom Annatar was breeding for obedience and for greater receptivity to Music without the inconvenient ability to wield it in rebellion. He’d offered the northern mountains to a branch house of the line of Durin in exchange for a regular tithe of ore. His attempts to influence Dwarvish wills remained fruitless, but they were soon joined by ambitious young dwarves of several other clans, and their works were great—though no rival, of course, to the works of Annatar’s personal forge, which remained in the volcano Oroduin.

Calador was only a hobby, however, a useful breadbasket but a creative backwater. Ost-in-Edhil remained the center of art, craft, trade and innovation, shining brighter literally and metaphorically than any other city in Middle Earth. Jewels paved the streets, markets thrived with every kind of craft from around the world, and electric lamps wrought with sungold and moonsilver shone day and night—but never so brightly as to drown out the stars.

(Mithlond was still a thriving port, and the highest seat of Noldorin government, but it wasn’t resplendent. Caras Galadhon in Lothlórien, Dormin in Dorwinion, the loose peoples of Mirkwood or the Great Southern Desert…ha! None could compare to Annatar’s gift of a city.)

Celebrimbor had even devised a new system of payment in which people paid not just once to own a thing, nor even in installments until they’d achieved the full purchase price (plus interest), but in regular, fixed-but-raisable amounts for the entire time that they possessed and used the item—without ever, technically, owning it. It was so regular, and gave the true owner such power to withhold! Soon, every Palantir wielder in Eregion’s web—so, every lord or merchant of note on the continent and beyond—paid a monthly fee to use their crystal. Annatar was thinking of applying the method to living quarters next.

But their trade agreements were more complex than ever, as they did their best to get goods and benefits to those who most needed them under the increasingly harsh rule of Númenor—or, when that proved impossible, to those who could pay for them. It was no longer feasible to never trade with slave-owners, despite the Elvish distaste for it. Even the Faithful of Númenor, the self-named Elf-Friends, owned “lesser” Men.

The north was still held by Elves, but south of the Gwathló River and the Great Forests of Fangorn, Lorien and the Greenwood, and creeping ever northward on the western coast and eastern plains, the Númenorean Empire ruled. Calador and the deep desert dwellers were the only holdouts against their domination, and Calador was officially their ally. They were driven by ambition, pride, and the labor of slaves, and a lust for immortality in the form of glory and legacy.

They had banned Elves from setting foot on the Isle of Númenor itself 200 years ago. Relations had improved little since then. The more the long-lived Men yearned for longer lives yet, the more Elves were envied, and loathed and scorned for that envy. “Their time has passed,” their loudest politicians called. “Why do they hoard their gifts?”

(“Orcs, Celebrimbor—I’d expect this willful blindness from the Peredhel, but not from you! The Men are going to attack. I can initiate breeding, but I need at least three decades to birth and train even a small army—” 

“No! If you cannot free them, let them rest, Annatar! We will handle our own problems!” 

[Annatar could free the myriad orcish fëar (most Elvish, some Mannish, some other) from the fiery, tormentous pocket dimension in which they were trapped while unembodied. If he worked at it personally for a while, from the Hall of Bind and Burn itself. He may have previously told his husband, however, that said Hall was neither fiery nor tormentous, but that it was tragically indestructible and indeed inaccessible to anyone but Morgoth himself, save Annatar’s lingering dispensation to summon souls for service. The last time he told Celebrimbor about a ready cache of useful tools, Celebrimbor insisted on destroying nineteen perfectly good Rings of Power!]

“Fine,” Annatar huffed.

He also silently initiated the breeding and training of orcs in the far, far east, where Celebrimbor didn’t need to know about anything until it mattered.)

Now, it may be said with some truth that the Elves kept certain gifts from Men. Seven mighty Rings the Gwaith-i-Mírdain had wrought anew for the Dwarves—not quite the same as the originals; great works of art can never be truly recreated. But of equal power and intention, to strengthen and unite. (Annatar swore by Eru Himself that these ones neither were nor could be made subject to any external control—indeed, he alone of the Mírdain had contributed nothing to their making.) Three mighty Rings they wrought anew for the Elves—that is, Celebrimbor wrought them alone again. Instead of the Air, Water and Fire of Arda, each of the new Three drew and best focused its power in a less physical theme of the Great Music, manifest in the great strengths of Elves. Their names were Rinya, Cilya and Elinya.

Celebrimbor took Cilya for his own from the first moments of its forging, for where did the Ring of Renewal belong more than with the Lord of the City of Second Chances? Gil-Galad accepted Rinya, Ring of Memory, for the memory of a king must be long and wise. Galadriel refused Elinya despite Annatar swearing again to have no malicious hand in it. So they gave it instead to Zheria, sage and Singer of the Desert Peoples. “Ring of Stars” it was called, for its heart was the bond of love between Elvenkind and Arda itself, and the first part of Arda which Elves had seen and loved was the stars.

And for Men, they re-made nothing, because it was increasingly difficult to trust Men with any kind of power these days, and how could they choose Ringbearers, anyway? To give Rings to lords (or anyone else) of Númenor might invite war. To give Rings to Men other than those of Númenor would invite a different war.

To give no Rings at all to the already-envious Men also, of course, invited war.

- - -

They expected an assault from the south. The lumber-lands between the rivers Gwathló and Isen had been under dispute for years, to the greatest loss of the Dunlendish Men who called them home. Eregion braced itself—unhappily, loathe to surrender the peace they’d built and enjoyed for so long—for an assault from the south.

(The first Rings had been forged in what felt like perfect peace, some mountainous orcs notwithstanding. How, some had asked, can we make such marvels again with tensions so high? But Celebrimbor had come of age during the Flight of the Noldor and the first battles of Middle Earth. He had come of age to the scent of Finwë’s blood in flickering torchlight on the steps of Formenos, and the air-taste of Fëanor’s ashes by the spring of the River Sirion. None of the Rings of Power which the smiths of Eregion wrought were designed as weapons—never. But they were always capable of war.)

- - -

Here is a basic geographical fact of Second Age Middle Earth: Númenor was a seafaring empire and justly proud of it. Shining Ost-in-Edhil in Eregion, center of craft, art and trade, was inland. Between Eregion and the sea to the south stood the great lumber-forest of Enedwaith, neatly ordered by Annatar alongside Men in days of peace and cooperation. But to the north, the two realms bound tightly by friendship and the Great Elvish Road, lay the coastal kingdom of Lindon, whence Gil-galad ruled as High King of the Noldor (and of many other Elvish people as well).

Here is a fact about time and fate: the end of the Second Age of Arda was nigh, and the melody of Elvish Kingdoms in Middle Earth was coming to a sharp decrescendo.

- - -

The Númenoreans sailed into Lindon’s Gulf of Lune swiftly and skillfully, under cover of thick fog. There were no defenses ready—no northern Elvish city had ever been attacked from the sea before. Ulmo Lord of Waters and his servants had always guarded their shores from the Enemy. But he did not interfere in war between the Children of Eru.

The bombardments began on Harlond and Forlond first, closest to the sea. There was some time to begin evacuating Mithlond itself. Many of its people managed to retreat in safety. 

Gil-galad did not. Gil-galad pressed Rinya into Elrond’s hand, clapped Círdan on the shoulder in farewell, and stayed to hold the line to the last. It is said that in the end, he fought alone on a streambank south of the River Lhûn, all his last comrades slain beside him. It is said that he cast aside his shield and wielded his spear two-handed, and slew a thousand men before they brought him down. It is said that with his dying breath, the last great Elven-King summoned an impossible, unstoppable storm, which swept through the Gulf and then upriver, destroying countless warships and forcing the Númenoreans to hold their positions rather than chase the retreating elves.

(This is all mostly true. It’s perhaps more accurate to say that, well, the fucking second all the civilians were clear, Ossë of the Storm started smashing ships while Uinen of Calm Seas stood aside and Ulmo looked the other way. There’s non-interference policies and there’s friendship as ancient as the first elf to find the seashore, and there was only so much any of them could tolerate in letting the attack come from the sea.)

- - -

“Annatar,” said Celebrimbor, when Elrond arrived in Ost-in-Edhil with a tattered host of refugees and tears on his cheeks, “you started breeding orcs 20 years ago when I explicitly said not to, right?”

“I love you so much,” said Annatar. “Yes. But I had to start nearly from scratch and there’s barely a few regiments worth, and they’re a month away at best, if I stop all breeding and abandon the young, because someone refused to be realistic about the immediacy of this problem—”

- - -

Celebrimbor pressed Cilya into Elrond’s hand, its spring-green emerald gleaming.

“No!” Elrond shouted, furious and weeping, and shoved it back at him. “You all can’t keep doing this to me!”

“I’m sorry,” Celebrimbor said sincerely. But his grey eyes were steel. “But I will not risk any of my last great works falling into the hands of these jealous murderers. And nor will I leave my city to its fate alone.”

Then he swayed, suddenly pale, fëa frail and weary without Cilya’s bolster.

Annatar was across the city avoiding the half-elf arranging defenses. He turned his focus sharply, contact instant and effortless with his husband.

Celebrimbor! How long have you been— No, that is obvious. How dare you be so careless? Why didn’t you tell me?

“I may have made the old family mistake at last,” Celebrimbor admitted. Like Fëanor with the Silmarils, and Miriel before him… To Annatar, he teased, I’m sorry. I know it’s unlike you to be careless with your most precious things.

Don’t joke, Annatar snapped, striding across the city toward them, cauldrons of acid abandoned. You will join that Ring to your spirit once more and leave this place. I will not allow—

Elrond, supporting Celebrimbor by the elbow, was saying much the same thing, with less overbearing fire but only a little less alarm.

“I will not,” Celebrimbor snarled at them both. He shook himself free and laid a hand on the city wall beside him, not for balance but as a lord reaches for his scepter. “It is my realm for which the enemy comes, which I have built and glorified these long and wondrous years. I will not forsake it until my blood stains its stones.” To Elrond he added, “But you, these mad Men will no doubt hang as a traitor or some such nonsense. And Celebrían won’t leave without you—so, go! We will follow when we can, I promise!”

Chapter Text

1 Day after the Fall of Eregion

Three great sky-blue sapphires adorned Ar-Pharazón’s throat.

Ar-Pharazón the Golden, King of Númenor, Emperor of Harad, Heir of Morning Star, was a bold enough leader to enter Ost-in-Edhil as soon as it offered surrender—though not bold enough to have personally fought in the long battle. Nor did he venture into those areas where soldiers were still dismantling, through deadly trial and error, the many traps strewn about by Song-skilled crafters and war-trained engineers. The occasional scream still sounded, accompanied by flashes of lightning and flame or the scent of terrible acids and poisons.

While he’d waited for his conquest to be carried out, he’d had someone pry the sapphires from Gil-Galad’s crown. He’d had them cut down, and re-set into a thick golden torque that now lay around his neck like an indolent snake.

Celebrimbor had carved those jewels himself. He’d forged the crown from Dwarvish mithril and gifted it to his cousin and king in congratulation upon completion of the great remodeling of Mithlond Harbor in 732 (at which Celebrimbor had also worked). Whoever had taken it from the royal treasury would’ve needed to bypass locks which Gil-galad himself had forged, long after Celebrimbor taught him how to make (and pick) locks one rare idle day on the Isle of Balar.

Celebrimbor was wounded in body and spirit. Blood seeped from his side into a bandage hastily applied by his captors. His country was burning in the army’s wake, fields, orchards and woods along the roads he’d built from here to Lindon all set aflame as the quickest means of conquering. And Ost-in-Edhil, his brilliant city, his attempt to make bliss anew in Middle Earth, was being torn down around him. Its stones were overturned; its workshops shattered; its people fled, bound, or simply dead. 

Ar-Pharazón was talking grandiosely about…something. Celebrimbor’s ears still rang with clashing steel, falling stone and distant screams. He couldn’t wrest his attention from the shining, stolen, spoiled sapphires, and what justice it would be to tear open the throat beneath them.

- - -

Celebrimbor was focused on the repurposed sapphires around Ar-Pharazón’s neck, because deny it though he might, Celebrimbor still had a thing about slain kings and stolen jewels. 

Annatar was focused on Celebrimbor (exhausted, bleeding, burning with grief and wrath like the Last War come again); as well as on the soldiers around them (steel-armed, well-rested, alert toward their king and their captives in equal measure); the soldiers and captives and city beyond them (the people were defeated and the city was nearly there; the last clocktower fuse would take six men with it in three, two…ha!—but that was the last of the truly vicious traps); and most of all on Ar-Pharazón himself, unquestioned lord of this little mummery of surrender. 

(They hadn’t intended to lose, obviously, much less to be captured rather than retreat after their allies. But once again, one had to concede that the Númenoreans had great skill in conquest.)

In his golden armor and stolen jewels, Ar-Pharazón monologued smugly on about the glory, wealth, and might of Númenor; how soldiers’ deaths were noble in service to all of the above; how the defeated might earn mercy through submission… He didn’t know that six more of his people had just died in the clocktower explosion. He wouldn’t have cared if he did, though he might’ve faked it to their surviving comrades. How far the House of Elros had fallen! Were they not so staunchly in opposition, Annatar might’ve exulted in the proof of his lord’s will at work in Arda so long after his banishment.

Annatar was regretting his fana-bound marriage, and the millennia of slow and subtle work around it. He had made himself so small, and for what? The armies of Númenor had marched up his wide caravan roads. A dozen pettier nations would now throw themselves at Númenor to avenge Eregion or face contract-sworn curses that would make Húrin Thalion weep. As would his own Calador, of course—not that their attacks in the south had diverted the Númenoreans from this. And the prize jewel of all his labors was bleeding, silently weeping, and nearly ready to burn up the rest of his self-marred fëa in despairing wrath, Fëanor’s heir that he was.

Annatar would bind Celebrimbor’s will in utmost servitude before permitting that. Yet what then? Healing had never been in his purview. Making and remaking, yes, sometimes with unmaking in between—ah, the orcs, the wargs, the werewolves! The hosts of houseless spirits he’d once commanded! Now, Annatar didn’t even need to take wolf-shape to kill the Men presently surrounding them. But the Men beyond that? The army encircling the city? And even escaping with Celebrimbor (willing or not) into the mountains wouldn’t destroy the root of their problem: this smug, gold-clad king and all the machineries of empire at his command. 

Fortunately, Annatar had many skills beyond necromancy and brute force. Ar-Pharazón was too proud in victory to properly guard his mind; it was simple as starlight to see his greeds and ambitions, his secret fears, what he knew of his foes and what he expected to see in them…

The king paused his pontificating to allow his soldiers to cheer.

Feel free to act horrendously betrayed, star-gem, Annatar whispered in Celebrimbor’s mind, wrapped in molten promise that neither of them would be the one stabbed in the back.

Then he reached for the songs he’d learned long, long ago from the Lord of Forges, and melted first the cuffs on his own wrists and ankles, then the tip of the sword held to the back of his neck. The guard stumbled back with a yelp at the heat, and Annatar rose and strode forward—only to cast himself to his knees before Ar-Pharazón, forehead pressed against the jewel-specked, bloodstained stones.

“Oh mighty King!” he cried. “Many years ago I came to this land seeking to share the secret arts of the immortal gods. Now I see my great error: the fate and power of this world lies not with Elves, but with the Men of Westernesse! I beg of you, golden Ar-Pharazón, accept me as your servant, and your reign shall last forevermore.”

- - -

24 Days after the Fall of Eregion

Ar-Pharazón took them back to Númenor. He didn’t like to be long away from the luxuries of Armenelos, and—though he’d never admit this was a concern—literal proximity to the Blessed West was believed to be a key factor in prolonged life.

He took Annatar as a prize prisoner and probationary advisor, because Annatar was a magnificent liar. He took many of the finest crafters of Eregion to serve as artisan-slaves in the City of Kings. And he took Celebrimbor as a hostage—against Annatar; against Celebrimbor’s cousins; against his people, and they against him…

That was fine with Celebrimbor. Isolation suited him, just now. All his grand ambitions had come to naught again—his peace broken, his beautiful city sacked, his last great works scattered in exile. (And the new Three were his last great works, he'd put too much of his own strength into them to ever make their equal, he knew it as surely as he knew the Doom of the Noldor still heavy upon his shoulders. Fulfilling his grandfather’s cursed legacy at last, as everyone had expected for so long!) Greed and deception had overrun open-handed welcome and creativity, and to top it all off, one of his four remaining kinsmen was now dead, along with his realm which Celebrimbor has also helped build.

He lay in a well-deserved malaise on a cot in a dungeon beneath Númenor’s royal palace.

His monstrous husband’s thoughts curled around him like a rumbling cat, made of metal barely cool enough to touch and the eternal wheeling patterns of stars.

I could have this entire empire tearing itself apart in civil war in twenty, thirty years maximum, Annatar purred, confident, scornful and surprisingly gentle. Can you endure that long, beloved? Then we can easily go home and pick up all the pieces, and get back to work. Also, he added with almost giddy anticipation, their ‘Holy Mountain’ is a quiescent supervolcano.

-

A few notes, at this juncture, on Celebrimbor of Eregion, named Tyelperinquar by his then-delighted father and Curufinwë by his proud, insightful mother:

• He was kind by nature and good by choice, as he and most common consensus defined “good.” He even did his best to be nice, which came even less naturally.
• However, he had been raised to hold grudges unto the end of time and to have a god complex in more or less direct proportion to his talent and skill in craft. And he was very, very talented and skilled in craft.
• Talent and skill which, for the first 600-odd years of his life, was spent on swords and armor far more than on beautiful works of art, first in Formenos and then in bitter Beleriand.
• Sauron the Deceiver had been subtly encouraging that ego for the last 2,000 years or so. Partly because he got away with more when Celebrimbor was overconfident in his own oversight; partly because Celebrimbor let him get away with more when Celebrimbor was self-righteously confident; and partly because he genuinely thought that Celebrimbor was the best thing since the consistent ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference, with, thus, the greatest right to rule Arda save his own self (and Melkor, upon his inevitable return).
• Celebrimbor was currently drowning in grief, disappointment and despair, all of which he had a rich family history of sublimating directly to vengeful wrath and damn the bystanders.
• And, fundamentally, to borrow a phrase from another great romance: Celebrimbor was just enough of a bastard to be worth liking marrying—to Sauron, Gorthaur Lord of Werewolves, Lieutenant of Angband, whose standards were much farther along the scale of bastardry than those of some petty fallen winged thing.

-

Supervolcano sounds good. Celebrimbor savage reply was swift. 

Galadriel wouldn’t like this, he knew. Elrond would hate this. But, to be blunt, neither Galadriel nor Elrond had any authority over him—to be really blunt, Gil-Galad only ever had as much authority over the last heir of Finwë’s eldest son as Celebrimbor chose to give him. More importantly, neither Galadriel nor Elrond were here, and Celebrimbor vowed that they never would be.

He checked himself: If we can evacuate innocents first. A civil war will also catch them in the crossfire too much, including in the colonies… 

Celebrimbor stared vaguely at a hair-thin crack in the wall of his prison cell as he considered the reprises of history. 

We need to destroy, as much as possible, only Ar-Pharazón and his party—the most active proponents of war and empire. On all levels, so thoroughly that some of the government would collapse—that’s fine. But the main goal of destruction needs to be the ability and will to empire itself. A foolhardy military campaign that even the survivors cannot politically recover from, perhaps?

You have the best ideas, Annatar breathed. I know just the target—and if reprises hold, their retribution will make the supervolcano seem petty. Though I think…fifty years, for this. 

Use the volcano anyway, Celebrimbor thought furiously, remembering Gil-Galad’s sapphires on Ar-Pharazón’s neck.

Oh, Tyelpë, murmured the master of the Forge of Oroduin, the chief engineer of Dagor Bragollach. You know I love a good volcano.

- - -

45 Days after the Fall of Eregion

It was a matter of weeks before Annatar was bedecked in gold and attending court festivities on Ar-Pharazón’s arm, as prize rather than advisor but first steps were important. The King of Númenor was all but begging to be seduced. So Annatar made himself beautiful and charming and cunning, but never so cunning that Pharazón couldn’t guess some self-serving ambitions—he needed so badly to feel superior, in insight if nothing else. Annatar daydreamed about flensing the man’s spirit from his flesh. 

The most useful thing about the public appearances was the opportunity to build connections. Annatar’s first target was the Faithful House of Aphanuzîr (“Amandil”, when safe among friends). Despite publicly consorting with Elves for more than business, they were still powerful and popular enough that the lord and his heirs were regularly invited to court, even though Aphanuzîr’s youthful friendship with the king now more closely resembled discreet mutual contempt. Perhaps because their friendship now more closely resembled discreet mutual contempt. Ar-Pharazón liked nothing so much as a good gloat.

The trick to destroying Pharazón and his empire utterly while keeping enough people worth saving to make Celebrimbor happy, and then ensuring that they were saved, would be partisan polarization— without pushing so hard as to start a civil war. For such a delicate working, Annatar needed a hand on both sides of the scale.

- - -

8 Months after the Fall of Eregion

“The reason your Elvish slaves are falling into lassitude is that you aren’t keeping them sufficiently engaged with their work,” Annatar explained, mostly truthfully. “Elves are fragile, you know—oh, physically, they can often endure, or at least heal from, things that Men cannot. But mentally, emotionally? If they despair, or sometimes even if they feel bored enough, they die.”

Under the eye of two guards, the Captain of the King’s Guard, and the Master-Shipwright of Rómenna, he cupped Daerith’s jaw in his hand, and felt her pulse beat too fast. He’d chosen Daerith for this exercise, out of the dozens of Mírdain captives and hundreds of other Elves, for two reasons: First, that she had followed the House of Fingolfin from Tirion to Barad Eithel, known escapees true and false from Angband’s pits, and watched helpless from afar as Tol Sirion fell—so she was not in this moment certain how much he was acting. It made her wide-eyed tremor and obvious desire to spit in his face much more realistic.

Second, that she was a superb analyst of systems failure.

He pointed her face toward the half-built warship before them and said sweetly, “You will be working on installing the armaments today. If you alert the Master Shipwright to anything that seems flawed in the engineering, or to anything that might be improved, you will be granted an hour of starlight tonight. If you miss anything, or deliberately fail to mention something, you will be whipped. Am I understood?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly.

“Starlight?” The Captain of the Guard was skeptical, as Annatar dropped Daerith’s chin and shoved her toward the ship.

“It’s like meat and drink to them,” Annatar said. Again, mostly honest—though his personal record for keeping an elf alive in pure darkness was longer than the lifespan of even the most stubborn Númenoreans.

(It was engaging for him, too, to flex skills he hasn’t used in many millennia. Though it wasn’t…as satisfying as it used to be, he thought, to see the fear and hate in a prisoner’s eyes. To feel it rot through their spirit. He’d rather have stayed and shared Daerith’s hidden smirk as she figured out how to take the ship apart.

But duty called…)

“I believe His Majesty ordered that I myself examine the harbor chain?” He gestured deferentially at the captain. “Please, sir, lead the way.”

- - -

2 Years after the Fall of Eregion

Another variable introduced herself.

“Sauron.” Ar-Zimraphel, whose father had called her “Míriel”, named him quietly. 

Aside from the whispered insult, she was the epitome of propriety as they waltzed under the king’s eye. She was always watched by attendants whom Ar-Pharazón chose, she was demure to the point of mousiness, and Annatar had written her off as a non-player. But in an instant he saw that she saved her boldness for when it mattered most.

She leaned up to speak in his ear. “I know not what game you are playing with my husband, and less with my friend Aphanuzîr. But I do know your history. And I know that fallen and falling though we may be, I will not let you bring ruin to my people the way you brought it to the Eldar.”

Through the ages, she had inherited some of the look of Elros Tar-Minyatur, which meant she had inherited some of the look of Lúthien Tinúviel, on shorter stature and with a darker, more rounded face. Annatar enjoyed dipping her in the dance and purring back, “I will destroy your people down to the earth they tread, and you, sweet Míriel, will help me do it.”

Her eyes flashed with helpless fury, replaced immediately by determination to fight to the death. He decided, generously, that he meant his promise. She would be a stronger lynchpin than Aphanuzîr.

“Your lord husband has been very welcoming to me,” Annatar murmured as he pulled her back up. “Perhaps you should speak with mine.”

“The one in the dungeon?” Tar-Míriel’s voice was party-light and sweetly stabbing, aiming with confidence for a nerve. She did pay attention! Most other Men bought the line that “marriage” was nothing more than an alliance and an odd physical act, to a minor god such as he.

But her dancing body belied her tension. She feared the dungeons for her own part, Faithful in heart that she was, though faithful in her forced marriage first. She knew not how Ar-Pharazón would react if Annatar, newly come but highly prized, accused her of the treason she was nearly speaking.

He smiled shallowly, as he was expected to. “It might be educational.”

Chapter Text

6 Years after the Fall of Eregion

Celebrimbor was, as always, in his prison cell. As an official hostage against the rebellious corners of Lindon and Eregion, not to mention his cousins ensconced behind the Misty Mountains, his lodgings had been upgraded: he now had cushions on his cot, as well as a small bathroom with running water, and a narrow, high, but very welcome window in one corner. He also received regular paper and dull pencils, so that he didn’t “fade from boredom.” (His favorite lie to date by far—though honestly, he’d been starting to consider the option.)

If he held pencil and papers in his teeth and leapt up to grab the narrow windowsill, he could pull himself up and wedge himself into something like a seat in the good light. Raising his feet and pressing them against the adjacent wall provided friction to hold himself in place, and turned his knees into a literal lap desk.

CELEBRIMBOR!

He nearly fell as his cousin slammed into his mind like a trebuchet launch. He did drop his pencil, to a soft thnk on the thin carpet eight feet below.

Galadriel! Are you well? Why has it taken you so long to speak?

He scrambled to reach back before she fell away again, to hold the connection close and steady. Osanwë had never been his strength, but during this forced convalescence in the wake of giving up Cilya, Annatar had taken to assigning him gentle fëa exercises, in much the manner of Celebrimbor’s fussiest childhood tutors. 

Galadriel grasped his mental hand with gratitude. Even for her, it was very far from Lothlórien to Númenor.

Númenor isn’t incompetent. They did something to the Palantir network, and now only theirs work, she said irritably. I had to rebuild my Mirror nearly from scr— what did you DO?

Celebrimbor flinched, and wobbled again as Galadriel drove into his thoughts.

Let it be, he thought, trying to push her out without pushing her away. He folded and carefully bit his sketch of a ship’s figurehead he would never get to craft himself, turned and dropped to the steady floor. Annatar need to prove himself somehow—

Oh, if “ Annatar ” “needed” to…

It was always impressive how clearly Galadriel communicated sarcasm in the language of pure thought. Their shared thoughts were even less well-worded than usual, at this strained distance, and still she managed. 

As though summoned by name—as indeed he likely was—Annatar swept suddenly around Celebrimbor’s mind, his power a possessive shield of flame and infinitude. 

Galadriel, he said, through the thought of a fanged smile. To what do we owe the pleasure of your crude battering upon my husband’s fëa?

Gorthaur. As ever, Galadriel matched his ungracious grace. I had thought to see to my cousin’s well-being and reassure him of mine. But I realize now that I need not bother—he remains your cosseted pet.

Would the two of you stop for once? Celebrimbor cried. He elbowed his husband in their minds as he would to push him away from a flawed forgework. Annatar, stand down. Galadriel, I know you haven’t truly trusted me in a millennium, and I will never deny you your own grievances, but please, just a little, now—are you well? Is Elrond? Our people of Eregion, in exile? Annatar says you are hiding yourselves even from his sight…

(She would only trust me less if I tried to be friendly, Annatar murmured to Celebrimbor alone.

Consider trying anyway, Celebrimbor retorted.)

(Oh, ‘Annatar says’…) Galadriel thought. But more deliberately, she conceded, Most of your people are well, and those of Lindon, too—indeed, we recently received word that some who missed the long flight west managed to take refuge with the Dwarves in the Ered Luin. Some stayed there, and some came all the way east to us, or to the Greenwood. Many from both realms remain in the Northern Forest, awaiting the chance to retake their homes. 

Few things made Celebrimbor thank the Valar with sincerity. He did so now, from Manwë to Mandos

We have a plan for retaking everything, he promised. But first—Elrond, and yourself? Celebrían and Celeborn? And—she wouldn’t like it, but he had to ask— my Rings? (Rinya might take to Elrond even more than it had to Gil-Galad...)

He has taken it up, Galadriel said begrudgingly, still mistrustful of the craft which Sauron might have corrupted. He’s been using it to fortify his valley by the Bruinen.

Yet a wry smile slipped into her mind. He would be more lost in grief, I think, were Celebrían not constantly by his side. After this war is over, one way or another, we may see them wed at last—not that either has admitted it to myself or Celeborn yet!

Had any guards come into Celebrimbor’s cell, then, they would’ve found the elf-lord grinning at empty air like a madman. 

Finally! Please, pass on my congratulations if they ever come clean. And what did he do with Cilya? It seems that Zheria still wields Elinya well, though she, too, is using it to hide herself and her people.

Galadriel sighed. Amroth took it up. He has turned it to the strengthening of the forests, much-needed as the Men continue to attempt assault from the southeast, for wood for their ships and war machines. He is most eager to defend his homeland—I fear Celebrían will soon talk him into joining her and Elrond’s guerrilla campaign over the mountains. And before you ask: yes, the Doors of Durin and all such ways are open to them, should they need swift, secure refuge. Indeed, when he heard that I was attempting to reach out to you, Durin asked me to pass on his regrets that his people couldn’t muster faster ere Eregion fell, and his vow to help you or your heirs retake it.

Please tell him thank you, and that I hope to hold him to that promise, Celebrimbor said, while Annatar muttered something about the speed of regrets versus ten thousand axes, and the evasion of terrible curses on a technicality of wording.

As I said, we do have a plan to cripple the Númenorean Empire. He hesitated, intimately aware of Galadriel’s harsh judgment—but ultimately unflinching in his own. It is unconventional, but Annatar is confident, and from what I’ve seen, so am I…

- - -

9 Years after the Fall of Eregion

It was simple to declare one of the Palantiri unmendably broken by Galadriel’s retaliatory attacks, and even to smuggle it into Celebrimbor’s room. It was harder to hide it from any who might take it upon themselves to inspect the prisoner.

But it was worth it. Safe (relatively) with Faithful guards at the door, and Annatar’s support for the initial burst of Power, Celebrimbor could reach out to the Gwaith-i-Mírdain on Númenor and recreate the workshops in which they used to bandy ideas and enjoy one another’s company—in their connected minds, at least. And he was not the only one who welcomed the respite.

Is it terrible that I’m getting bored? asked Prestor, as in his body he twisted a row of lights into sockets to light a royal bathroom, and in his mind he reclined at a trestle table scattered with his unfinished, gravity-defying wire sculptures, interrupted by the war and now lost forever. I mean, of course I’m bored, I haven’t been allowed to work on anything interesting in years. These Men are so scared we might curse them that we’re forced to do little more than apprentice work. But I think I’m getting bored of the petty cruelties of prisonerhood as well. Oh no, spit in my gruel again… Oh no, another guard shoved me… 

He caressed the unfinished figure of a rearing stallion, skeleton of strong cord half-covered in distinct threads of copper for every strand of hair. He mused, I might provoke one of them to break my arm again just for some variety.

Eltiror, who had known more of starlore than anyone else in Ost-in-Edhil, said, Please don’t. I’m not bored, I hate this. I miss my tower. I want to go home. Annatar, not to rush craftsmanship, but can’t you work any faster?

Idly shaping an imaginary emerald (as he murmured of glory to Ar-Pharazón’s ears and mortal fear to his heart; and kept an eye on the doings of Amandil’s son in Andúnië; and slowly, gently, stoked the earthly fires beneath them all), Annatar said, I do have an option for a hastened timetable. But I don’t think any of you will like it.

Celebrimbor was leaning against the Maia’s shoulder on the memory of the workbench that had unofficially been theirs for centuries. Impatient with his own ennui, he waved a desultory hand to summon forth a large chalkboard.

Draftboard Rules, he said. No idea is bad.  

Speak! said Silawen, a master silversmith.

Well, said Annatar, golden wire coiling around his fingers, do you remember the first set of rings? The real Rings of Power, not the run-ups.

The Rings in the crafting of which you deliberately taught us a gaping sally port in the connection of will and power, that your own might slip in and seize mastery of both? Narmeleth said with poisoned sweetness. Once Annatar’s close friend and ally, a skilled jewelsmith and trade negotiator, she had crafted and worn one of the early drafts. Then Annatar had confessed his treacherous work upon them, and upon their bearers, and she’d moved to Lindon and refused to speak to him him until it fell.

Yes, that set, Annatar said without shame.

Celebrimbor said, Annatar…

Eltiror had picked up chalk to take notes. She frowned. The ones we destroyed, publicly, as a group?

Ye-es…

Celebrimbor sat apart now, arms folded.

How many did you keep.

Only one! Annatar slid to his knees before him, the picture of earnest repentance. Tyelpë, I swear only one. As a precautionary measure—and look, here we are, post-caution!

We are going to have words, Annatar, the elf-lord threatened.

Would that even work, though? Prestor asked thoughtfully.

Oh, I assure you. Pharazón would hump my leg for a real Ring of Power, Annatar drawled, repentance instantly forgotten at the opportunity to brag. If presented properly—likely by telling him he can’t have it. And once I had him truly under control—

Draftboard Rules are off, Annatar, Celebrimbor said sharply. He stood, pulling Annatar up with him by the collar. In fact we’re talking now. Excuse us, everyone.

They walled themselves off from the others’ thoughts. With the loss of Celebrimbor’s focus, the shared waking dream of the workshop faded and shrank, such that only the most stubborn spirits could hold on to one another.

So, all of them.

I mean, would it still count if he was manipulating their king so directly? Prestor asked. All the Morgoth worship, and that plan of attacking Aman—the Valar aren’t stupid. They might not raise as much wrath against these slave-taking mongrels if our fingerprints are obvious.

Can we change the subject? Eltiror said brusquely. In her body, she illuminated scrolls in a dusty library, iron chains on her wrists and ankles, under the eye of a guard with a whip. Or I’m leaving, too.

Very well, said Silawen. Did you see Elendil’s sword, when he came to Armenelos last summer? Isn’t that—

Prestor said, I swear to the flame everlasting it is! I remember when Azaghâl…

- - -

13 Years after the Fall of Eregion

Notable hostages had been “invited” to the new temple for its opening ceremony. Ûriphêl was in charge of the Elf-lord from the northeast. He was supposed to be clever, so she had her hand on her sword, even though his wrists were chained behind him in elegant gold. She hadn’t been part of the army that took his city, but she’d heard about the pit traps, the poisonous gasses, the explosions and lightning strikes born of dark Elvish magic.

But he stopped and gaped like any common tourist at his first sight of the new temple gracing King’s Square, and for a moment she let him. Damn right he should gape at the glory of Númenor! Behold, where once there was a dying tree, now a great dome of pure gold shone above the city, flanked by spires soaring up to rival Meneltarma! Behold, the doorway arch shaped by peerless Númenorean crafters into the figure of Tar-Minyatur the Founder handing the crown to Ar-Pharazón the Golden! And behold within, visible through the open doors, the even grander statue of the god whom the other gods, and Elves alike, would have Men forget, as they would have Men forget all that they were due in this world! (Her brother, a jeweler, had worked on the three jewels of the god’s crown!)

Ûriphêl let the Elf-lord stare for just a few seconds before she shoved him forward, across the Square to the great steps of the new temple. He gave a strangled gasp at her touch, but went obediently, head appropriately lowered. Chastised, no doubt, by the realization that his time as a Thief of the World was over, and the Age of Men was nigh at last!

(Celebrimbor enunciated his thoughts very carefully, over a roil of emotion. Annatar, why is there a 20-foot-tall statue of my grandfather on the dais of this hideous building?

Technically, it’s a statue of Melkor, Annatar replied primly. As a Man, no less. But I did provide several suggestions as to the appearance of his face and form. I thought it’d make it nicely as though this great Doom is coming from both you and I.

Thank you, it is abhorrent for countless reasons, Celebrimbor snarled silently. For one, did it occur to you that I share some of my grandfather’s face and form, and that this might raise questions?

My most precious of all known gems, Annatar hummed, you’re a little grubby these days, what with the imprisonment, and this statue of Melkor-as-a-mortal-Fëanor, gaudy though it is, is undeniably magnificent. Nobody will make the connection. Also, in pursuit of enraging the Valar, this flays two nerves with one cut!)

- - -

15 Years after the Fall of Eregion

You’re staring at me, Celebrimbor thought idly.

I’m halfway across Elenna, Annatar replied, amused.

We’re married, and you’re contemplating me in a way that is nearly tangible.

I was just considering, Annatar said, and if they’d been in person he would’ve traced the panes of Celebrimbor’s face with one light finger, how beautiful you would be if rendered down to your component atoms and neatly organized by element…and how relatively uninteresting, without the endlessly shifting permutations that the whole, combined form constantly generates. Most, I understand, and can predict with ease. Yet others…

You’re so strange, Celebrimbor thought fondly.

You always think that, Annatar replied with exaggerated haughtiness. I am an underlying theme of the purest, primal Music of Creation. You are a strange little latecomer, interloper…yet I have watched you defy rhythms that you cannot even comprehend, and emerge, if not victorious, then alive. I have watched you manipulate elements of raw Song and fix them into matter with almost no loss of potency.

Have I manipulated you, oh underlying theme of Creation? Celebrimbor asked, leaning into the molten spirit, the immeasurable infinitude, married forever to his.

Most certainly. Annatar twisted around and through him in fractal detail like a red-hot, contented snake. It is fascinating .

- - -

16 Years after the Fall of Eregion

Even with regular group check-ins, it wasn’t easy. Even with Elves “prized” as slaves, new and rare and thus treated a little better, it wasn’t easy at all.

I can’t do this anymore, Eltiror said abruptly in the shared mental workspace. Her focus flickered; in her cell, she twisted her wrists in their chains, her skin rubbed raw. I’m sorry, I just can’t—

Never again, she’d promised herself, as she’d used her cracked shackles to claw her way out of the dark, poisoned depths of Angband, and seen the stars for the first time since childhood. Never again—until the Men of Númenor came with their greed and their blasting powder, and their new chains, and the Lieutenant— Annatar even loomed over her once more, that soul-searing fire never satisfied—

Seeing the sources of her distress, Annatar politely withdrew his presence.

“I’m sorry,” Eltiror gasped aloud as well as in thought-speech. But she didn’t call him back. 

Don’t trouble yourself. Celebrimbor reached out to brush the thought of a hand down her back. I’m sorry to put you through this. If you want out—of Númenor, of the whole charade—I’m sure we can arrange…

Eltiror shook her head. 

It’s not your fault. I can– I can still help. I can. I just need these chains off .

Aman is just over there, if you really can’t take it, Prestor offered sympathetically. I’m sure Mandos would be—

Don’t pity me! Eltiror snapped. 

She rubbed her hands down her face (the chains, the heavy iron, they dragged . She shuddered).

I apologize for the outburst, she thought, as she withdrew to her own mind. Give me a night. I will collect myself.

But when guards came to wake the scribe-slaves at dawn, they found her body lifeless. They called for lesser servants to dispose of it.

.

Tar-Míriel herself brought the news to Celebrimbor’s cell, along with breakfast. New imperial dragons glinted on her skirts in golden embroidery, and her grey eyes were lidded with courteous disdain. She was accompanied by her usual guards, all Pharazón’s creatures. 

“One of your people died last night,” she said. “The first of your people.”

Celebrimbor said quietly, “I know.”

The scorn sharpened in Míriel’s voice. “She’s now in a kinder prison than you, at least, if the myths of your people hold true.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Celebrimbor forced himself into a dry smile as he dutifully set into his bland porridge.

Míriel scowled. Another, Celebrimbor thought tiredly, who might never truly forgive him for recruiting her to this scheme. And he hadn’t even told her about the volcano.

She bit out, “I hope your cursed city was worth it.”

Chapter Text

17 – 46 Years after the Fall of Eregion

Celebrimbor had never used a Palantir this much in his life. By the time he’d been old enough, they’d been in Formenos, and Fëanor in his temper forbade speaking to anyone who hadn’t joined them there—and priority rights for sneaking into Finwë’s office to use his stone hadn’t included Tyelpë, barely 40 years old. In Beleriand, it hadn’t been safe to cast one’s mind so wide-open. And in the many years since… 

Well, he’d always been busy, quite happily so, with the work within his reach. He did stay in touch with people outside his immediate city! He traveled, he wrote letters! And Annatar spent enough time tracking events far afield for both of them.

Now, for lack of anything else to do, Celebrimbor spent hours stretching his sight and his will across the Isle of Gift. He observed the building of troopships in Eldalondë, where Elves once visited from Eldamar, and the smugglers darting in and out of the countless small, rocky coves that dotted the northernmost coasts. He leaned mentally over the shoulders of potters and masons, alchemists and electricians and of course jewelsmiths, and whispered advice to elf and man, slave and free alike, if they seemed like they deserved it. He even reached across the sea back to Middle Earth, scrabbling blind until Galadriel reached out to meet him, and exchanged gossip of their shared people: who was still alive, which romances were progressing despite all the duress, how elves of the northern kingdoms could best harass their occupiers next, and how the Númenoreans would likely strike back… 

And he did worse things, because Annatar could only whisper into the dark corners of so many hearts at once, when he also—as he liked to boastfully complain—had to play politics more openly, and help run an Empire, and slowly stoke a volcano to wrath. And Celebrimbor had seen this done by a true virtuoso once, albeit in his earliest youth...

So it came to pass that Annatar stood at the king’s right hand and stifled hysterical giggles as Lord Khôrathôr of Nindamos stormed into the throne room in full panoply for war and demanded that Ar-Pharazón bar his cousin Lady Inzilzôr from the Council of the Sceptre, on the grounds that she was giving bad advice and usurpring his, Lord Khôrathôr’s, rightful place.

Is this exactly what it was like? he asked his truly unmatched choice of husband, delighted beyond measure. Is this a true reprise of the challenge of Fëanáro to Nolofinwë, before the king’s throne? Though he hardly needed to ask—he could feel the echo in the Great Music, reverberating through his essence.

I shall come to thee tonight as mist and fire and ravish thee, he murmured, a paean of his own. My most precious, cunning master of all crafts.

Celebrimbor hated the role he’d been cast in. But he couldn’t hate the praise, nor the satisfaction of a journeyman’s work well-done.

My father described it often, he demurred. Happy Anor’s-Rise, beloved.

Then he ruthlessly thrust his husband from his mind. Now hush! I need to focus. This is more difficult when he’s awake.

For Lord Khôrathôr’s part, he knew only the satisfaction of finally speaking his mind. For months he’d been tormented by the awareness of every one of Inzilzôr’s sly glances, every barbed comment in the king’s ear. This latest mockery with the plantation was the reed that cracked the canoe—and the words came to his lips like they’d been written for him, for so they had, in his heart!

“So it is, even as I guessed!” he cried, to Inzilzôr’s flippant denials. “This ‘noble’ lady would be before me with my cousin the king, in this as in all other matters!” 

He drew his sword, long and gleaming, and held it toward Inzilzôr’s smirking face.

“Get gone from my sight, and take your due place!”

Gasps flew through the courtiers attending upon the king that day. To bring a sword uninvited into the royal presence was already skirting disloyalty. To draw it—!

Gold-armored guards drew as well, though none yet stepped forward. To lay an unwelcome hand on the king’s cousin skirted all the way to treason, even if he threatened another royal cousin, and the king himself still looked more interested than alarmed. And Lord Zigur, standing behind the throne as usual, laid a forbidding glance upon the Captain of the Guard. 

Inzilzôr needed no guiding hand; she could be relied upon to act with perfect political instinct. She bowed silently to Ar-Pharazón and stepped back from the throne before which she waited, without so much as a glance in Khôrathôr’s direction.

Khôrathôr’s temper only flared higher, stoked as by a skilled bellows-master. He strode to her and set the point of his blade against her breast.

“See, cousin? This is sharper than your tongue! Try but once more to usurp my place, and maybe it will rid our nation of one who seeks only her own glory.”

Now the Guard Captain moved. He yanked Khôrathôr’s sword-arm back, squeezing his wrist until the blade dropped from nerveless fingers. A second guard seized his other arm; a third drew Inzilzôr back and looked her over for any injury, care which she accepted graciously.

Zigur leaned forward to murmur in the king’s ear, suppressing a blinding grin. Ar-Pharazón waved him off, already standing. All the lines of the throne room, rows of tall columns and jeweled suns with rays that stretched out like the power of Númenor, drew the eye to golden king standing tall before the throne,

“Khôrathôr of Nindamos,” he began (an ignoble city, never grown much from the fishing village that it began as, but rich from the harbor’s trade). “Thrice you have insulted me this day: by breaking the peace of my hall, by accosting my kinswoman, and by your own absurd actions dishonoring my kinsman the Lord of Nindamos. Repayment must be made—but first I shall give your temper time to cool. You are banished from Armenelos! Return to your lands, and stay there ten years.”

Khôrathôr opened his mouth to protest. Then he thought better of it, and bowed in acquiescence so far as the guards allowed him. 

Celebrimbor pressed him no further. He turned his thoughts instead to the queen, who had sat demurely a dais-step below her husband through the whole show, saying not a word and showing not a thing.

He’s all yours, my lady, Celebrimbor promised, with a whisper of satisfaction that he couldn’t conceal. Tar-Míriel would soon retreat to one of the petty royal summer estates, downshore from Nindamos, and give sympathy to her husband’s cousin—who had no great redeeming qualities save easily played-upon pride, greed and ambition; but then, nor was he notably cruel. And he was wealthy, and controlled a river port, and was respected by a great many merchants…

- - -

More elves brought to Númenor—from Eregion, Lindon, the wilds; Celebrimbor was responsible for them all—died in chains. Manien, who’d dwelt by the River Baranduin but came every Yule to see her kin in Ost-in-Edhil, was cold when the guards came to rouse her. Gloreth, a young elf who’d tended the wild roses outside Harlindon, collapsed in a nobleman’s garden under a guard’s whip. Tarandir, a skilled bronzesmith, spun away from his unhappy engraving of a new basque of Ar-Pharazón’s military triumphs, punched his overseer in the face, and fled his hröa before the Man could react. His brother Faeldor followed not a month later. 

Others died abroad—that is, at home. Celebrimbor found out from Galadriel, or he glimpsed it in his Palantir. Some displaced Falathrim of Lindon had rebuilt their ships by now, and began to attack Númenorean traders at sea. They were peerless sailors but inexperienced pirates. And the obvious way to start getting decent people off of Númenor was aggressively subsidized new settlements in Lindon and Eregion—but conversely, it was only fair that Celebrían lead a mixed regiment of Elves, Men and two hasty young Ents in bandit raids against them. In trying to smoke them out, Númenorean soldiers burned a grove of holly trees older than the coastline. 

Celebrimbor’s own weary fëa beat against his chest at times, yearning to fly West with or without his hröa along. Every shorebird that passed his window seemed to cry a promise of respite—and even as the worship of Morgoth grew, the Númenorean cult of Elwing the White kept its birds sacred and safe, spreading their cries throughout the island.

- - -

The earth beneath Meneltarma, central, holy mountain of the Isle of Númenor, shook.

It’s fine! Annatar hastily assured his husband, after a few very long moments in which Celebrimbor’s only sense of him was magma. I pressed too hard for but a moment. I have it under control. I’ll make up something prophetic to tell Pharazón and the masses.

I’m more worried about you. Celebrimbor made his bed again, for lack of anything else to physically fuss at. You may heal at will, but you never seem to remember that part of being incarnate means that you can overreach and tire. You can die, even if you don’t have to go through Mandos to get a new body.

Tyelpë, I ruled the mightiest fortress in the world for all the Years of the Trees. I hid my true self for a millennium from your nosiest cousin, when for six hundred of those years she wielded a Ring of Ulmo’s own strength. I assure you, I can handle one petty king of Men.

Annatar, I personally grew so suspicious of you that I single-handedly, without telling literally anyone else of my plans, folded the powers of air, water, and fire into three great Rings of Power.

Even before we wed, you were always possessed of a unique, astonishing, and frankly inconvenient ability to see me truly. You don’t need to worry.

- - -

Ithilwen looked up at the new statue of the Great Enemy of her foremothers, on which she was to paint gilt. It loomed above the city, beside the royal palace, dwarfing all but the tower of the Star’s son Elros Tar-Minyatur. Like the others, its countenance was inspired by the similarly infamous Fëanor.

Beside her, bearing her own liquid gold and brushes, Daerith began to snicker uncontrollably.

“What?” Ithilwen had to ask.

“He’d hate this. Oh sweet Eru, he’d hate this so much.”

“...Fëanor or Morgoth?”

“Yes!”

- - -

It was difficult to bring a country to the brink of civil war but no further, while encouraging half of it to their pointless deaths and ensuring that the other half escaped with little consequence, without getting a little noticed.

Fortunately, that’s why Melkor invented—

Actually, Mairon himself was the first to lay blame for his own illicit actions upon an innocent, now that he thought about it. Back when the Lamps still shone—but not for much longer, with Mairon passing secrets of their craft and guarding to Melkor, and then blaming it on Narron.

Ah, the Lamps! If he regretted one thing… The Lamps were his Alqualondë, he’d once admitted to Celebrimbor. His first great crime, his worst— He called nothing ‘mistake’; he regretted nothing on the grand scale. But if only there’d been some other way, some perfect inversion rather than the total destruction that came… Melkor liked both in equal measure; all transmutation was his nature.

Anyway: as this day’s scapegoat, Lord Aphanuzîr of Andúnië, begged for mercy very prettily.

“Please, my king, forgive my grandson. For the love you once bore me, ever your loyal friend and servant. For the grace and mercy you bear with your crown.” 

His knees and palms were flat on the floor of the imperial court, his head bowed, his robes crumpled by the guards’ rough handling. His age showed in grey-flecked hair and wrinkles of tension and terror.

“Nîlubên is young and bold, as we were once,” the proud lord pleaded. “I cannot deny his crimes, though I knew them not until you with your great discernment brought them to light. But they are the crimes of feckless youth! He built ships because he seeks glory of his own, and fears that he shall never achieve it when Ar-Pharazón the Golden shines so brightly. He sought only to add to the might of the Númenorean Empire.”

The man of the hour himself, Nîlubên son of Nimruzîr, stood to the side, bound in irons and held by two royal guards. (“Isildur” son of “Elendil”—you know how it is.) He had spoken earlier, then been struck until silent. Stripped to the waist, his dark skin showed the bruises beautifully. 

Thanks to the efforts of Annatar’s “spies,” Nîlubên was charged with treason, having been found to be building a fleet of troopships (suited to carrying large numbers of people) in the neglected Elvish port of Eldalondë, with no royal taxation, oversight, or permission whatsoever. All his kin were charged with conspiracy and abetting of treason. His wife, infant son, brother and father were in cells beneath the palace. (His mother had been assassinated several years ago.)

How far the noble house had fallen! How pleased Ar-Pharazón was to see them brought so low—his nagging voice of Faithful conscience; his only ever true challenge for the hand of Tar-Míriel, whence he held his awesome kingship! He wasn’t surprised at all to learn that all Aphanuzîr’s vaunted honor was nothing but a mask over betrayal and ambition. 

Annatar, now valued all the more for his revelation of this treachery, whispered a suggestion in the king’s ear.

Ar-Pharazón smirked. He struck the royal scepter on the dais of his throne to announce his answer.

“This is the judgment and justice of the king,” he declared, doing little to keep the venom from his voice, much less the excited greed. “Nîlubên is young; he cannot have accomplished so much without the knowledge of his lord and forefathers. This is the end of the House of the Lords of Andúnië! Too long have you hidden treason and Elf-friendship behind noble titles—so I hereby strip all titles from you and your heirs. All your properties and monies are now the property of the crown. For his conspiracy to raise arms against the crown, Nîlubên son of Nimruzîr shall be executed at dawn in two day’s time.”

He leaned forward and did nothing whatsoever to hide his relish. “However, I hear your plea for mercy, my old friend. The rest of your house shall live, yourself included. You shall serve Númenor as slaves in the colonies.” As an afterthought, with something like true mercy, he reassured, “Your great-grandson will not be put to hard labor until he comes of age.”

Amandil kept his back bent. But for a moment, he stared up at the royal dais with such burning hatred that Annatar wondered if he’d start spitting it. 

If it flew at Ar-Pharazón, well, there was always room for more on the execution block. If at Annatar himself—whom his glare very much did include—Annatar wasn’t concerned. There was nothing the fallen lord could say that couldn’t be dismissed as maddened, desperate blame-casting.

Faithful Amandil, however, knew his place unto the end. He lowered his gaze and pressed his forehead to the floor, and said thickly, “Thank you, sire.”

- - -

Of course, Amandil met a discreet knife in the dark less than six months later, on a rice plantation in the Nindalf wetlands. Specifically, his kidneys met it, and then his throat.

Elendil fought off his assassins, but only evaded the subsequent manhunt by leaping into the raging Anduin. After a cursory search, he was declared safely dead.

Anárion, Isildur’s brother, and Gilneth his wife and Elendur his son, were all rescued, by swift, stealthy squads of Elves who melted with their prizes back into the eaves of Fangorn Forest. 

It wasn’t the first time Elvish bandits had stolen slaves away from the eastern fiefs, not to mention crops and axes. But it was the first time they’d shown real intelligence about it, in the sense of strategy and the sense of secret knowledge. 

Ar-Pharazón bellowed for hours. He threw gilded pottery at the walls of his private rooms. Annatar wasn’t happy himself—he never would’ve let them cut it so close if he’d known in advance what Ar-Pharazón had planned. Not only had the king not told his trusted advisor, but apparently he didn’t even dwell on political assassinations enough for a casual observer to catch them in his thoughts! 

Worst, Annatar knew exactly who he had to thank for saving his game pieces, and Galadriel would be unbearably smug. At least he’d been able to honestly cast the blame…

“I want the traitors found and slaughtered!” The king continued his tantrum. “I want that forest burned! I want that woods-witch’s head!”  

“Sire, there is little I want more than a full Arfinian hat trick,” Annatar said truthfully. “But perhaps it is time to consider—”

Ar-Pharazón whirled on him with a snarl. 

“I will consider nothing. Send her the elf-lord’s head. Her cousin. Make her see that I keep my promises.”

Annatar shoved his flaring wrath into the burning depths of the earth, and very, very carefully let none of it show on his face. The slopes of Meneltarma tensed; the subliminal shivers raced through the stones under their feet.

Fortunately (for him), Ar-Pharazón recanted on his own.

“No, I will not waste such a hostage yet—not over discards of a broken house.” He paced, searching unconsciously for more priceless artwork to destroy. “Send her one of his hands. You may choose which.”

His hands! Celebrimbor’s hands with which he wrought works of such beauty and power that this petty creature could barely comprehend! With which he gently held a quill and sternly wielded a sword, and gestured unconsciously as he spoke, his endlessly energetic spirit flowing through speech and body alike! Of course, Annatar could replace it with a work of his own hands in mithril and diamond, more perfectly shaped and deft in use than any messy, unplanned flesh. But the marring to his precious husband!

Annatar bowed, pushing his wrath even deeper into the magma, where it would do some good. 

“You are most gracious, oh king,” he said. “Might I suggest, instead of a hand, his hair? I’m sure you have noticed that Elves place great value in their hair, always keeping it clean and untangled. It is a point of great pride and honor—and that goes doubly for their royal house. Shave him to the scalp and send the witch the whole of it, and she will know that for her trespasses against you, her young cousin has been raped beyond redemption.”

It was even mostly true, save the final words. The Noldor knew the many terrible prices of captivity, and Celebrimbor was humble (in certain ways) among his kin. His pride would regrow with his ebony locks, and none who mattered would hold it against him. 

Ar-Pharazón’s eyes glimmered with cruel mirth, and, yes, lust.

“Will you rape the one you once called lover, my demon lord?” he asked silkily.

Annatar would only start with flensing this man’s spirit from his body, slowly and carefully, such that the pain of each was always at its utmost yet never enough to drown out the other. Then he would move on to the real torture. When his lord returned in terrible glory at the end of days, with all his grand and inventive cruelty, he would be impressed at what Gorthaur had done to Ar-Pharazón, so-called King of Númenor.

Annatar ducked his head again and murmured, “As I have said, I am captivated now by the glory of Men, not Elves, my king. Command me, and I shall see it done.”

- - -

Meanwhile, Isildur’s illicit troop carriers—six in harbor and two more half-finished, soon all-finished by royally commandeered workers—were absorbed into the Númenorean navy. They joined a complement of ships sent to ferry Haradrim mercenaries and slave-soldiers north to the former elf-lands, where settlers were still beset by “Elvish bandits.” Ar-Pharazón promised that this would solve the problem once and for all.

(Rumor spread that the situation in the north was even less controlled than the King’s Men claimed. Settlements burned to the ground; soldiers routed, massacred, lured into the trees by Elvish enchantment and never seen again… Other rumors spread that no soldiers were ever left alive, but civilians who came seeking only a new home, who listened to the advice of local Men and cut only the trees needed to build a house and farm a field, were left in peace…)

This freed up warships to hunt pirates and smugglers, which were an increasingly persistent danger all along the coast of Middle Earth. Lord Khôrathôr of Nindamos alone lost three consecutive ships of good Enedwaith lumber.

(Rumor said he’d blamed the navy for failing in their escort duties, and even blamed the king himself…though this, the man denied most loyally. Rumor said that the king was not satisfied with the fall of the House of Andúnië, that it had only whetted his appetite for the riches of his lords, that his spies hungrily sought more traitors. Nindamos wasn’t the only house to begin investing more in the colonies, where their riches might be further out of reach—even if pirates were a greater danger.)

(Rumor said the pirates were Men; rumor said they were Elves; rumor said they were agents of the angry Gods of the West, for how often they escaped pursuit into sudden squalls, or swept in on strong winds while their prey sat becalmed… All agreed that they harbored on the cursed isle of Himling. But all attempts to corner them found only thick fog, jagged rocks, and more Ossë’s Fire than any sailor was comfortable with.)

In the south, for centuries Númenor had kept the petty kings and ever-warring tribes of the Haradrim at each other’s throats through a graceful dance of bribery, selective military support, and now and then outright conquest. Now, however, a charismatic prince from the Eastern Oasis began to unite first his own people, then fellow desert tribes, then nearby peoples… He spoke of shared blood, of welfare over rivalries, of spurning the Western sea-lords who promised riches but only stole them, stole hearts, stole good men away in chains… He spoke of fighting back.

He was invited to Númenor to voice his grievances in person, and like a fool he accepted, which solved that problem. He wasn’t killed—that would have united the squabbling lot of them! But in his living absence, neither his younger siblings nor his most trusted allies could hold the coalition together. Not with the money the Númenoran Empire offered for the flesh of each people’s enemies. 

(Rumor said he was bringing a hundred virgin slaves. Rumor said he had killed a hundred Númenorean soldiers, while riding an elephant as tall as a palace. Rumor said that Tar-Palantir would never have allowed such unrest to stir among the Haradrim; rumor said Tar-Palantir would have stopped the pirates by now; rumor said that Tar-Palantir would’ve seen that the riches flowing out of the colonies made their way into the pockets of the common people as well as the king and his already-wealthy loyal lords… The King’s Men still dominated all levels of society, but others began to wear flowers in honor of Ar-Inziladûn, as the former king was called at birth.)

- - -

Eregien Henibleg, the first child born in Ost-in-Edhil after the city’s founding, died in a guard-sergeant’s bed. He’d taken fancy to her bright green eyes and lithe form, and she fled her hröa first. 

There was a mass escape from one of the biggest slave markets in Rómenna. The ringleader was Narmeleth Lothlind, once Annatar’s good friend and chief, mostly willing pawn. When his early manipulations were revealed, she’d returned to her father’s home in Lindon, furious and hurt. But when the forces of Lindon retreated east, she’d stayed in Ost-in-Edhil to make her stand with her old friends, and been captured with them as well.

Annatar winced as he ordered their stolen ship fired upon, and observed the retrieval and display of bodies himself. If only she’d kept that ring, he could’ve easily kept her spirit here!

- - -

Tyelpe, are you well?

If we were speaking in person, your tone would be the patronizing, ‘talking to lesser beings’ one. Go away, Annatar. I’m fine.

Some lesser beings require looking-after. You haven’t even tried to lecture me about the slippery slope of the new sacrifices in the temples.

What of them? Lambs, falcons… Men have sacrificed animals to the Valar, or to whatever other gods they imagine, for millennia. Elves have sacrificed animals to the Valar for millennia, or did you somehow never notice the annual Hunter’s Feast?

Abed—acot—in his prison cell, lit only by the crack below the door and the narrow window high in the corner (but it was dark, it had been dark for days, though rain never fell), Celebrimbor rolled over and closed his eyes against the rough fabric of his pillow.

I said, go away. I’m tired. Please me by doing your job and getting this all done faster.

A few minutes later, he opened his eyes again.

Annatar, what ‘slippery slope.’ What are you going to make these people do?

I assure you, I won’t have to ‘make’ them do anything, his husband said smugly. I doubt I’ll even have to suggest it. Once a person begins to see others as objects to be bought and sold, to throw such an object away on an altar is hardly different than working it to death at an oar or in a field.

Chapter Text

9 Years Before the Fall of Númenor

The first human sacrifice in the Temple of Melkor, at the heart of golden Armenelos, City of Kings, capital of the mighty Númenorean Empire, took place at dawn on the winter solstice, welcoming the return of the sun. The time of Men. 

Birds of every kind soared above the city in flocks so great that they darkened the sky. They came together in the shapes of vast eagles, coursing ships and rising waves. Then the birds would turn and the eagles fell, the ships sank, and the waves crashed down with a tumult of clashing bird calls.

In Númenorean Middle Earth…

In the north, soldiers accused native Men of sheltering Elvish rebels. Some were arrested, others killed. Some of their Númenorean neighbors, now settled and even intermarried, spoke up for them.

In the center-lands, a force of Númenoreans and lesser Men finally finished a dam across the Entwash. They sought to mimic the great locks and waterwheels of the Isen, cornerstone of regional trade and industry. But where Annatar had persuaded the Isen with honeyed tongue and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain had made its new course as comfortable and magnificent as the old, the Númenoreans wielded only force. The Entwash seethed behind stone walls, smelt-poisoned waters fed back into the reservoir before being permitted out, in drips and drabs, to feed slave-worked fields.

Further south, Elendil was said to be alive and running around Pelargir Province, rousing the people to arms. The King’s Men governor cracked down on dissidents, as did captains throughout the cities of shining Elenna. Despite the colonial unrest, gold and grain, silks and jewels and every kind of prosperity continued to flow to the top of the Isle of Númenor from its conquests. Some poor folk may have been indebted into slavery, but gold-roofed palaces grew even grander. 

Yet Ar-Pharazón caught a cough that took a week to fade, even with an Elvish healer smuggled in to tend him. He had to blacken his beard daily to hide the grey. He had no sons, not even a bastard. (Tar-Míriel had seen to that.)

The pirate attacks abated—the imperial navy had finally killed enough of them to scare off the rest. 

Ar-Pharazón turned his jealous thoughts West, and began to build an even greater fleet.

- - -

5 Years Before the Fall of Númenor

Quiet Míriel, mousy Míriel, Míriel who had grown up a princess in this palace before she was a wedded queen, learning all the secret passages as a game that her parents encouraged, because one never knew when an assassin might make a try…

Míriel crept from her bedroom into Zigur’s, in the opulent suite which her husband had granted the demon that was now his most trusted advisor. Gold filled the rooms, golden drapes and golden statues and gold gilt on the wide window-frame that faced the sea, whose waters were the source and conduit of Númenor’s greatest power.

Míriel didn’t look out the window. She kept her attention on the figure who sat at the nearby desk, illuminated by the firelight trapped in an elf-stone from his own sacked city. From behind, he looked almost perfectly human, save the vivid gold of his hair.

But he was already rising and turning to greet her as she slipped in past a thick tapestry, even though Míriel knew she didn’t make a sound. He invited her to sit as though this was a perfectly normal, planned appointment. 

Míriel didn’t sit. Míriel continued to keep her gaze from the sea.

“I’ve just had a dream,” Míriel said, and her voice did not tremble. “A true dream. If the King sails West, the sky will darken and the sea will rise, rise to meet the sky, and swallow this island whole in a wave like the world has never seen.”

She couldn’t look at the sea, with the terrible sight so fresh in her mind. But her voice was a queen’s, and she fought not to tremble with fury as much as with fear. A volcano, they’d finally admitted, a volcano to destroy Armenelos and run towards the sea—a disaster but a survivable one, with preparation. They would have rebuilt the ports, rebuilt the government in Populist Rómenna and a sister-capital in Faithful Pelargir…

Zigur smiled a wolf-smile, sharp-toothed with his golden eyes. He retook his seat and leaned back like a country lord with a glass of fine brandy.

“Unoriginal, of course—but all according to plan! Thank you for sharing your foresight, my lady. I’d suggest that you thank the Valar for the message, but…”

His elegant shrug of a gesture took in the sea that was, the sea that would be, and the fact that they both knew he knew how desperately she was fighting not to tremble.

She left his rooms by a different secret way, and paused on a forgotten bridge between towers to look out over her city. Armenelos, City of Kings, Crown of the Númenorean Empire! Storm clouds gathered overhead and untamed lightning flickered in the distance, but still the city shone—it would’ve outshone the stars even were they visible, with all the lightning-lamps they’d built since the capture of the elf-artisans. 

There, the glittering arts district, center of song, dance and story throughout the world. Míriel had loved to visit theaters as a girl, and none more than the grand, open-roofed Coliseum, which had also hosted holy festivals since the founding of Númenor. There, the Great Western Market, where even at this late hour vendors hawked sacred white bear pelts from northern Forodwaith and silks from southern Haradrin plantations, the finest blades from the forges of Minas Isen and rare gems from beyond the Sea of Rhûn. Here, there and everywhere the sprawling villas of the elite of Númenor, each a palace in its own right—and to the south, their mirrors in the Halls of the Dead, roofed in gold and jewels as befit the great and glorious ancestors.

Alone of all the stars, the Mariner pierced the clouds and shone down on Númenor. Míriel still remembered her father’s warm voice telling her the legend of Eärendil Half-Elven, a Man so noble and selfless that the gods awarded him immortality. Now, the Coliseum showed The Mariner’s War, in which Eärendil with the Gem of Immortality on his brow, which he’d first won by acts of valor against wicked Elves, stormed the hideout of the gods and shamed them for their cowardice, then fought his way to his rightful place in the heavens.

Quiet Míriel, mousy Míriel scurried next to the demon whom her husband had placed in the dungeon. 

He, too, was already wakeful. But by the look in his shining eyes, Míriel judged it more akin to her own restlessness than to the Maia’s lack of need. Did Elves dream? 

The guards tonight were hers, not Pharazón’s nor Zigur’s. She fingered the jeweled hilt of the dagger ever at her waist (one never knew when an assassin might make a try). 

“If I killed you now,” she asked, “would all of this stop?”

“No,” said Celebrimbor, and to his credit, he seemed truly apologetic. “It would only doom your attempts at salvage.”

- - -

2 Years before the Fall of Númenor

Celebrimbor spent his days staring into his Palantir, the likes of which his great-grandfather had first wrought, his grandfather had refined, and he and his jewel-smiths had, perhaps, perfected. He spent his nights at it, too.

Tensions rose every day, and not just because of the teeth-grinding Discord that Annatar had woven through the melody of the Isle of Gift itself. Every day the people in the streets grew more restless, driven by omens and the speech of the Faithful. There was drought in the northeastern fields, where dark clouds shaped like eagles loomed without loosing a drop. There was angry muttering in the west, where the people missed their Lords of Andúnie. The flower-wearing populists were growing in number, and every time Ar-Pharazón arrested one of their leaders, another two emerged. 

Rumors flew, some true, more nonsense. Celebrimbor helped them along, where appropriate. To the farmer, The fields are more bountiful on the eastern shores. To the lord, The council seat will go to whoever raises the most taxes. To the potter, mason, alchemist, electrician, and of course jewelsmith, The lords don’t value your work. The dark priests don’t value your lives. Tar-Palantir would never have allowed this.

(He never needed to say, Tar-Palantir would never have attacked the Elves. That is when things began to go wrong in Númenor.)

Annatar brought each day’s news to Ar-Pharazón over breakfast. The king ate alone on his balcony, turned away from the golden roofs of the glorious Halls of the Dead. As was Annatar’s nature, even in this obsequious persona, he also brought facts and figures.

Ar-Pharazón turned and stared moodily toward the vaunted halls of his ancestors. Eagles flew high above, silent and hungry. He turned back again abruptly.

“Truly, a ten percent loss of population?”

“Yes, my king.” Annatar inclined his head soberly. (Celebrimbor took a moment to appreciate his own efforts.)

“Any citizen of Númenor is henceforth forbidden from moving their household to Middle Earth without permission,” Ar-Pharazón declared. “Any non-citizen who tries will be enslaved. This is my word. Draw up an edict.” 

- - -

1 Year before the Fall of Númenor

There was something amiss in Annatar’s– fine, in Ar-Pharazón’s palace. Though it wasn’t Ar-Pharazón who had deftly spread his awareness through every grand hall and conspirator’s alcove, so that not a whisper went unnoticed. And it wasn’t Ar-Pharazón who had spent decades carefully cultivating a subtle Discord that set all hearts to restless hunger and all nerves on edge. It wasn’t even Ar-Pharazón who had chosen the new drapes in the throne room, though Ar-Pharazón certainly thought it was (but his taste was simply terrible. It was a mercy to everyone that Annatar had stepped in).

And it certainly wasn’t Ar-Pharazón who was now slipping through the palace in a silence so skilled that Annatar only noticed from how it disturbed his finely crafted Discord—no, how it eased the dissonance. Someone was sneaking around his resplendent palace of the Kings of Númenor whose very presence soothed the ancient stones.

Annatar, too, was skilled in silence. He left his rooms and for hours they played wolf and mouse. One loose note—a stumble, a gasp—and he began to unravel the interloper’s Song of secrecy. Note by note he added disharmony, turning pure to putrid as seamlessly as cyanide in wine.

The next stumble was audible, though still too far away to see. A common guard glimpsed a glint of metal in the shadows. Only a bright star emerging from behind a cloud and reflecting off a nearby window convinced her that it was of no concern.

Annatar caught his prey at last as dawn began to creep into the sky at the bright star’s stern. Wrapping his own silence around them both, he slammed the intruder against the nearest courtyard wall.

Elrond Peredhel bared his teeth, unflinching from either the claws at his throat or the bloody dent his head had left in the wall.

“I’m here to oversee the evacuation myself,” Elrond declared like it was a command. “I don’t like how you treat my brother’s kin.”

“What is wrong with your bloodline,” Annatar complained, “that leads you to endlessly barge into my plans and upend them? You know, Melian actually started this, with her little arboreal utopia on my doorstep. Did she put the rest of you up to it?”

Not that that accounted for the other side of the half-elf’s horrifying lineage.

Cool, very sharp metal brushed against the back of Annatar’s neck. With it came a cool, very sharp voice, albeit lighter and younger than the one which usually took that tone with him.

“You heard him, Gorthaur. We’ll manage the ‘deliverance’ part of the plan from here on. Where is our cousin?”

“Little Silver.” Annatar smiled with fanged affection. “I’m surprised your mother let you from her sight. Does she know you’re running around a second war zone?”

Celebrían pressed her blade more firmly against his neck, drawing a red scratch in his otherwise perfect skin. 

Annatar sighed. He retracted his claws, then dropped his whole hand from Elrond’s neck, and gently roused his husband’s spirit from slumber.

Tyelpë, your young cousins have arrived to harass me again. I’ll bring them to you—please tell them to go away, or at least to quash their pointless obstreperousness and follow the plan.

- - -

50 Weeks Before the Fall of Númenor

“…grain taxes are finally all tallied for your review, which of course means it’s time to start collecting last year’s.” Annatar delivered his morning report to the king. “Inzilzór sent an updated report on the Great Armament, which I invite you to review before your Palantir-meeting with her this afternoon. And—” he smiled sharply. “For a final, humorous note, the latest superstition from the sticks: the ghost of Tar-Minyatur has allegedly been spotted in the fields of Orrostar, warning a couple farmhands to flee Elenna ere its Doom arrives! Where do you think that will rank, my king, among ‘weather’ and ‘strange birds’, for superstitions of the small folk?”

He’d made sure that he would be the one to deliver this news, to be sure that it was responded to just so. And because it was extremely funny. A ghost! 

He watched the fears flicker through At-Pharazón’s mind—fear of inadequacy in the legacy of kings, fear of mockery for that failure, and above all fear of all things related to death. Each barely had time to breathe before the blustering pride and jealousy swallowed them, but they lingered beneath his conscious thought. Oh, how they lingered!

“Have the farmhands tried for preaching insurrection,” Pharazón snapped, and shoved a fatty piece of pork in his mouth.

“As you wish, my king.” Annatar gestured to the attendant scribe, who made a note on her papers. 

He honestly hoped the half-elf was enjoying his little performances. The irony was too good not to share.

- - -

40 Days Before the Fall of Númenor

The day before the first ships of the Great Armament were to sail for the West barely dawned. Smoke drifted up from fetid cracks in Meneltarma, and joined with the dark storm clouds that had covered the vast island for the last six months without a single drop of rain. Flocks of every kind of carrion bird wheeled and screeched across the sky, gulls and crows and eagles Great and small. 

Before Ar-Pharazón left for his flagship, he oversaw one last rite in the Temple of Melkor, the most magnificent and bloody yet. He led the ceremonies himself, dressed in golden robes of state and new golden armor with a dragon emblazoned on the chest (the greatest children of Melkor! only ever slain by Men!). And his crown, of course.

He opened the ceremonies with the sacrifice of the hostage Prince of the Eastern Oasis, would-be uniter of the Haradrim. After all, the Númenoreans would hardly need to keep treaties with lesser Men after they’d achieved immortality!

Annatar— That is, Lord Zigur and his priests took over the bloody work after that. At-Pharazón acted ruthlessly, and undeniably spoke the rites with grandeur and panache. But still he avoided any true contact with death—and there was death indeed today! Six Mannish slaves, chosen for their beauty and anointed with oil and gilt, were slaughtered as Ar-Pharazón spoke of the power of Númenor in the light of Melkor’s fire. Might strengthened by might! A pair of dwarves, unlucky shipwreck victims, were bled out on the altar as he chanted a paean to all the royal ancestors, back to Tar-Minyatur himself. Then another half-dozen beautiful men and women, a gift to the one true god, a bargain for victory and a mere taste of what was to come… 

Annatar began to daydream about what the world might be like if any of this meant anything. If the words and blood and “faith” of Men could have any effect on a Power like Melkor, Who Arises In Might! Oh, to summon his lord in truth from his banishment, and watch their eyes melt from their skulls in his terrible glory, their spirits shrivel from their flesh in abject worship and despair!

He slit another crying girl’s throat with an appropriately dramatic gesture, and made sure his Senior Priest caught all the blood in the ritual ewer. Ar-Pharazón did drone on.

.

Celebrimbor was not observing the temple rites, though he couldn’t shake the awareness that they were happening. His Palantir-assisted sight flicked around the island instead, as it was prone to these days. It stuck on the rows of ships readied for war to the west. The army was already aboard.

How many of those Men were truly wicked, and how many just dutiful, or loyal, or conscripted unwilling and terrified? They’d convinced Ar-Pharazón to call for volunteers for the oars and infantry, rather than the usual slaves, so Númenorean citizens hungry for immortality might “earn” it through sweat and blood. But “volunteering” meant little with soldiers at your door, and could free choice truly come from force-fed delusions? And how much blood would they spill before they died, in the land where Celebrimbor’s kin had gone to live in peace? All of it would be on his hands, after this greatest and most terrible crafting of a Doom…

He didn’t see the guards until one slammed open the door to his cell. He barely had time to hide the Palantir in the folds of his blanket—but they weren’t looking for contraband. One seized him by the shoulder and yanked him from his cot, kicking at his knees to force a stumble. The second grabbed his wrists and tied them behind his back with a swift and savage knot.

Annatar, he thought sharply, what is this? Why didn’t you warn me?

What? Annatar demanded right back, then, What?

The guards dragged Celebrimbor into the hallway, where more awaited them. Not his usual doorwardens—they, loyal to Tar-Míriel, stood aside meek and unhappy in it, surrounded by thrice their number of King’s Men. 

“Surely this is– is improper!” one of them tried. “Doesn’t he have to be anointed? We should’ve been told hours ago!”

The guard still holding Celebrimbor’s arm sneered. “What would you know of the rites of Melkor, elf-friend?”

She would have lunged for him, had her partner not held her back. The King’s Man only laughed meanly.

Celebrimbor understood, then, and nearly laughed as well. Oh, that was fair. Yes, let his blood spill as well!

In the Temple of Melkor, for the first time, Annatar spoke clearly in Ar-Pharazón’s mind. What are you doing?

His meaning leaked beyond his words. Surprised, Pharazón’s thoughts leapt to the answer, plain in Annatar’s sight: they were already going to use an elf for the final sacrifice of the ceremony, the one that would serve as augury and portent for Númenor’s coming ascension to those ranks of immortality. Why not upgrade from a simple dark elf, recently captured from the rebels of Lindon, to one blessed with divine Light? And Zigur himself had advocated the breaking of hostage-treaties with the death of the Haradrim prince. How was this different? And most of all—

Ar-Pharazón ordered the choir to begin their final paeans, and found his focus to reply directly.

Why not? His dark eyes met Annatar’s across the sacrificial dias, flint versus gold. Do you still care for his life, you who has professed service now only to the glory of Men? You whom I would leave to govern my empire while I am away? You on whose word I go, to claim my rightful immortality across the Western Sea?

Of course not, Celebrimbor murmured, observing secondhand.

Of course not, said Annatar, lying in thought as well as he would with tongue. He let Pharazón sense his scorn for the arrogance of Elves, his appreciation for the vicious ambition of Men, his resentment for the so-called Valar and a shred of his undying admiration of the infinite potential that was Melkor.

In another mind, halfway across the continent for some reason, he shrieked, Peredhel! Get to Armenelos now. We will have need of a healer!

Ar-Pharazón looked away, satisfied. Celebrimbor, being forced to stumble downhill from the palace, had the temerity to be fondly amused—Celebrimbor with his spirit still scarred and weary from the crafting of his final great works; Celebrimbor who still ached, in some broken corner of his heart, to burn up like a glorious, dying comet, like so many of his kin before him.

I cannot sit this out safe in my cell, Celebrimbor thought. It isn’t fair.

You could if I controlled everything, Annatar snarled. What a perfect object lesson in how quickly things went wrong when he didn’t!

Properly, a sacrifice in the Temple of Melkor would be prepared for hours in advance, anointed with rich oils and dressed in the finest silks, ancient runes of power painted in gold on their skin. (Synonyms for “mighty” in far-eastern languages, written in Cirth.) One whose entrails would be spilled, spread and read for prophecy, would be painted even more richly, and draped in a shining veil of jewels. They were then kept in seclusion in rooms behind the altar until it was time to bring them forth.

Celebrimbor wore only the oils of his own skin, having not yet had his weekly permitted bath, and a workman’s rough tunic, barely a step up from a common prisoner’s rags. His hair was elf-ragged, and the only shine was the Light in his soul-baring eyes. Thus was he paraded down the street, where loyal Númenoreans thronged to glimpse this greatest of rites, and all down the aisle of the Great Temple, to the altar where Annatar and Ar-Pharazón both waited.

Yet the Great Music rang around him with a reprise which Annatar had not planned. WIth such pride had Maitimo Nelyafinwë, freshly captured King of the Noldor, walked into the throne room of Angband: bound, helpless, chin high and storm-dark eyes aflash with lightning, ignoring the enemies on all sides who jeered for his coming destruction. And here stood Mairon with his sacrificial knife, and looming above the image, if not the reality, of Melkor…

But where Maedhros had blazed with vengeance and grief, Celebrimbor was only a steady flame of resolution. He did not fight as the guards shoved him down onto the altar, and priests came forward to hold each of limbs.

He looked only at Annatar, his heart a steady, open blend of rue and faith. Do what you must, beloved. I will see you again—and then we will both see this done. I trust you.

Annatar (Mairon, Gorthaur, Sauron) looked up at the statue of Melkor, Lord of Arda, whose glory had moved him to betray even Aulë. All the parts that weren’t Fëanor (shared by Celebrimbor) were Melkor’s favored form—sharp lips, narrow limbs, ever-shifting jeweled hair… He wandered from the recitations he’d taught the Númenoreans and spoke words of honor in speech known only to those born before time began.

It didn’t help. It made it worse. He still hated this, and he would continue to hate this even if it was truly Melkor, and not some hollow mimicry of the flesh he’d sometimes worn. If this final flash of a life lost could snap the delicate walls of Ëa and call his Lord back from his unjust banishment, to rend the world to absolute nothingness and create something perfect in its place—

He’d put a lot of work into the world that was, now. He had devoted admirers of his own, skilled and strong-spirited, willing to give themselves entirely into his command. And at the center of it all was his Celebrimbor, most willing and most challenging, most insightfully admiring, divinely creative and— And even for all he could yearn for, Annatar did not want to give him up.  

Good, Celebrimbor thought, with venomous satisfaction toward the Great Enemy of his youth. His spirit twisted like a burning grip through Annatar’s. For you are mine, not his.

Annatar slit his throat, and watched him die.

- - -

Some time later, somewhere to the west, Celebrimbor woke up. For a moment, his spirit felt feverish with borrowed heat.

He immediately tried to get out of the bed in which he’d been laid. 

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Did Pharazón sail? Where is Annatar? What have I missed?”

Chapter Text

22 Days after the Fall of Eregion

Use the volcano anyway, Celebrimbor thought furiously, remembering Gil-Galad’s sapphires on Ar-Pharazón’s neck.

Oh, Tyelpë, murmured the master of the Forge of Oroduin, the chief engineer of Dagor Bragollach. You know I love a good volcano.

A puzzle had presented itself, and almost against his will, Celebrimbor began to focus on more than his own misery.

The problem is two—no, three parts, I think: to weed those worth damning from those worth saving, to bring just and utter destruction to the first, and salvation to the latter—including our own people, obviously. Every elf on this cursed island. And every slave as well. 

Annatar hummed thoughtfully. For the first, we return to civil war…or near enough. The start must be slow, escalating until the swift and savage end. Likewise, the evacuation of the salvageable—we will need a great many ships, in the end! Never fear, beloved, I shall see it done. As for our people… 

He hummed again, a cat with a tinkling toy, a renewal of ancient, shadowy songs.

I can begin freeing them with no Men the wiser any time we please, if nobody minds a little spiritual subterfuge. A shell game, if you will. Entirely painless, I assure you…

- - -

7 Years after the Fall of Eregion

Celebrimbor had been right: Galadriel did not like their plan. She didn’t like any part of it—the manipulation, the perversion, the warmongering false and true. And most of all, she disliked the “life-saving” measure that Annatar promised.

Can you not hear your own words? she cried. Tyeleperinquar, you insist yourself uncorrupted by the one you married, then you suggest with all earnest innocence that your own people be turned into orcs.

Not orcs, Celebrimbor argued. Nothing like orcs!

Wraiths, ghouls, spirits bound and unwilling—I will not argue the nuances of necromancy! 

Not unwilling either! And not technically necromancy! Only those who agree shall undergo it, and only if they ‘die’ in peace—Annatar admits that if the hröa is much marred, he would have to be much more aggressive in restoring the fëa, more than anyone is comfortable with. So we shan’t!

Bent over the basin of water she’d re-crafted and re-enchanted in her private garden in Lórien, Galadriel kneaded her forehead.

Cousin, I wish I could believe you. I truly do.

- - -

Eltiror, once a slave in Angband, was the first to go.

I can’t do this anymore, she said abruptly in the shared mental workspace of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. Her focus flickered; in her cell, she twisted her wrists in their chains, her skin rubbed raw. I’m sorry, I just can’t—

Seeing how his presence weighed on her, Annatar politely withdrew.

“I’m sorry,” Eltiror gasped aloud as well as in thought-speech. She mustn’t anger the Lieutenant, must not— But this wasn’t then, he wasn’t that anymore— 

Don’t trouble yourself. Celebrimbor reached out to brush the thought of a hand down her back. I’m sorry to put you through this. If you want out—of Númenor, of the whole charade—I’m sure we can arrange…

Eltiror shook her head. 

It’s not your fault. I can– I can still help. I can. She had promised to stay—they needed star-watchers, for the piracy and the early evacuations. Falathrim couldn’t actually navigate worth quartz, away from shore. And overt escape would damage their plans. I just need these chains off.

Aman is just over there, if you really can’t take it, Prestor offered sympathetically. I’m sure Mandos would be—

Don’t pity me! Eltiror snapped. 

She rubbed her hands down her face (the chains, the heavy iron, they dragged . She shuddered).

I apologize for the outburst, she thought, as she withdrew to her own mind. Give me a night. I will collect myself.

.

It was nearly dawn before she managed. Memories haunted her. She couldn’t tell, one moment to the next, which chains she wore. But to ask—to surrender, when she had fought so hard to become a real elf again—

Morgoth had never been a problem for petty mine rats like Eltiror. Morgoth was a concept, a poison in the air. It was the Lieutenant who visited the mines on occasion, who might look at you with his burning gaze, and decide that you weren’t enough—

Can’t you just do it? she demanded (demanded!). 

Do you truly wish me to? the L– Annatar asked, just Annatar. She had shared ink bottles and eaten suppers and joked about parabolas with Annatar, for centuries. She hadn’t needed to reach out to him, he was already watching her. (Of course he was watching her. Burning, mighty, condescending as a god to a rat. How did Celebrimbor bear it?)

No, she replied. (Please.) No. 

She scratched her arms so deeply that she drew blood. She wished she had a window. She promised herself that soon she would have the open sky.

She lay down, and positioned herself so that she could feel the chains as little as possible. (She still remembered how.) She didn’t let herself hesitate any further. She-her-fëa leapt from her hröa like she’d once clawed her way toward those impossibly beautiful pale lights—

Eviscerating fire caught her, immense and incandescent. She forgot herself again; she’d gotten too used to being an elf; she fought. Shh, shh, Sang the immensity, and she could not fight it. She slept. 

Annatar held her fëa as delicately as uncooled glasswork, taking great care to keep it apart from her hrőa, yet maintaining the last threads binding them together. Thus, the empty body wasn’t quite dead, though it would certainly fool a Man—making the duration of this process more finicky, but the conclusion much simpler. With a spare thought, he bade Tar-Míriel to alert her people among the lowest of the low in Númenorean society: the undertakers.

The morning guard summoned those most unclean slaves to remove the corpse. They obeyed—but instead of taking Eltiror’s flesh to the furnace, as was custom, they did as the queen bade and placed her under a tarp in a mail cart leaving the palace grounds, with a variety of packages for Andúnië.

There she woke, fëa restored to hrôa by the finest necromancer now working in Arda. She knew nothing that had passed since the moment she’d leapt forth—the Children weren’t suited to un-incarnate existence anyway; Annatar barely had to brush away the memory of panic. She knew only that she had braved her fears, and they had proved naught but fears indeed—because now, she had to stay hidden until she reached the safety of Elendil’s house, but she could flip aside a corner of the tarp and look up at the brightening sky.

It is done, Annatar murmured in Celebrimbor’s mind, as sunlight crept into the high, narrow window of his cell. She is well, and away.  

He shared a sight/sensation that Celebrimbor could barely comprehend, of a spirit sliding from his grasp—invisible yet so bright, intangible yet so, so real, incomprehensibly foreign yet incontestably knowable as curious, quietly fierce Eltiror—into the home of her flesh. They watched her open her eyes and look up with a breath of joy.

Celebrimbor was still smiling when Tar-Míriel brought his breakfast herself. Ah, gruel again!

Míriel’s lips were a thin line, her grey eyes lidded with courteous disdain. Her skirts were embroidered with golden dragons, Ar-Pharazón’s latest misguided usurpation of history. Her guards for the day were loyal to the king.

“One of your people died last night,” she said flatly. “The first of your people.”

It is done, and it went smoothly, she meant, though even her thoughts didn’t betray it. We will be able to do it again and again.

Celebrimbor schooled himself to sobriety. “I know.”

Míriel’s scorn sharpened like a knife. “She’s now in a kinder prison than you, at least, if the myths of your people hold true.”

My people have her, she will be safe.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Celebrimbor, Thank you, and hid a bright grin by taking a mouthful of his bland porridge. He’d been nervous all night, and the relief made him giddier, if suddenly tired.

Míriel’s scowl was entirely honest. She was too Númenorean not to envy how Elves could live and live and live, and it compounded her frustration at being caught between Ar-Pharazón and their scheme to destroy him. And Celebrimbor hadn’t even told her about the volcano yet, on Annatar’s urging—much less how the Valar would retaliate if attacked, rather than simply swallow the king and his army whole…

(Celebrimbor was skeptical of that himself. Thus, the volcano.)

“I hope your cursed city was worth it,” Tar-Míriel bit out.

Oh, it was. It had been. And all of his people who did not live, even if only for a few hours, would be avenged.

- - -

Celebrimbor began to draw out the endlessly permuting, intersecting details of their plan, in a geometric code that looked like art. He’d always understood things better when he turned them into handicraft. 

He kept the premise of his original three-part plan: divide, damn and deliver. The first flowed naturally both from and into the second and third, and all subdivided further along multiple axes, likewise intersecting: hearts & minds versus practicalities, and the great theaters of war: Eregion, Lindon and the north, the Gondorin centerlands, the Haradrin south, Númenor itself, and the sea…

(Annatar smiled at the sketches, one night when he slipped into Celebrimbor’s cell. 

“We can’t all be the primal reification and steward of the concept of ordered quantification,” Celebrimbor snapped, nettled at the feeling of doing, for the first time in centuries, clumsy apprentice-work.

“It’s very well-made,” his master assured him. “Very lovely, too.”)

Annatar had the damning well in hand, with his deep Song stirring the volcano far below and his lips to Ar-Pharazón’s ear, and to an ever-increasing cadre of courtiers, officers and wretched priests. (And sometimes his lips to other places as well—Celebrimbor ground his teeth and did not watch, until his husband befuddled the guards and slipped back into his bed.) 

So Celebrimbor was free to focus mostly on the deliverance. He coordinated with Tar-Míriel, Annatar and the House of Andúnië to ensure that the ship-building in Eldalondë went unobserved for as long as possible—it was a feint, but they might as well get as far as they could with such an absurd scheme. They’d need the ships. He looked over Anarion’s shoulder as that youngest, least noticeable son of Andúnië made contact with the smugglers who frequented Elenna’s rocky northern coves, offering them the use of these spare ships so long as they were hidden and available to the Faithful on demand. He connected the smugglers with Elrond and the free shore-folk—and those of his own people on Númenor who took Annatar’s escape and wanted off the island—who wished to spite the Númenorean Navy and/or help ferry people away from the doomed isle.

Most of the freed elves left, but a few stayed hidden in the margins of Númenor. Daerith, one of the last surviving engineers of Barad Eithel, had some ideas she wished to apply to Elendil’s ships. Manien, who’d learned stealth as a Marchwarden on the Doriath/Nan Dungortheb border, stayed to help others escape once they’d woken from “death”, and tempestuous Tarandir the bronzesmith became her apprentice. 

A few died in truth. An impetuous young  lord slew Silawen, master silversmith, for crafting him exactly what he’d asked: a mirror which showed the truth of all who looked into it. Luinor, an apprentice jewelsmith, was working on the head of the massive new statue of Morgoth when a frayed rope dropped the whole working platform a hundred feet to the ground. And more, accidents and cruelty… Annatar offered to restore each to life, but none accepted—that would be necromancy in truth, excruciatingly unholy, forcing fëa back into naturally abandoned hrőa and chaining them together with brutal will.

Elrond was surprisingly amenable to the whole grand plan, or at least, to the division and deliverance—he saw in these the best hope for his brother’s people. Galadriel continued to disapprove, but she also continued to help indirectly—no Númenorean who passed under the leaves of Lothlórien or Fangorn returned, now, save the Faithful or the escaped slaves. Or the rescued slaves, taken in infrequent raids. Word spread among the “lesser” Men of Middle Earth: even more than before, the Elves were friends.

On Annatar’s advice, the Faithful began to reach out to “lesser” Men as well, and to speak more among the common men of Númenor—not necessarily of Elves, but of the corruption of the royal court, with their dark new god. Of their greed; of how the riches of the Empire flowed to Númenor, yes, but only seemed to reach the City of Kings, not the countryside, and certainly not the colonies that made them…

It was little things at first. But Celebrimbor filled sheets and sheets and sheets with how it all expanded.

- - -

No particular spirit occupied the island that had once been Himring Hill, neither eäla nor—thank Eru—fëa. Yet the stones upon the mount, weather-beaten and moss-eaten bones of a once-mighty fort, seemed to glare down at Elrond as he stepped ashore. The air was winter-sharp and unwelcoming in his lungs, though minutes ago at sea it had been summer-warm. Ice crackled underfoot as soon as he left the range of the tides. 

But Rinya was warm on his finger like the memory of a hearthfire, and he held a harp carved from the ancestor of one of those stunted birch trees clinging to the hill, strung with red-black hair and carved with eight-pointed stars. There were several reasons Elrond had been elected to be the first ashore.

He began to strum and sing—no Song of Power, just an ancient lullaby, which he’d first heard while hiding with Elros under a strange bed, captives of the monster singing the lullaby. The last note flowed into an idle night’s campfire song, and then a song for welcome to a feast, and then a rousing battle-round.

Rinya continued to thrum along to his heartbeat, and Elrond played music that his Man-ish memory usually forgot, and some that he didn’t think he’d known in the first place. He played songs for waking trees and shaping stone, waltzes from Tirion and shanties from Lindon and warding-songs from the eastern Siege-line, which the harp knew so well. He sang until his throat was dry.

And when he stopped, Himring had begun to remember itself. The ice had receded to the feet of the scowling stones. The air was autumn-chilled at worst, and ready to welcome allies for a hot drink and a war council. Even the choppy waters of the bay had eased, when he turned to look back at the waiting ships of his people and allies.

He’d come farther up the hill than he’d realized. He waved, shouting. “It should be safe, now! Come to harbor!”

- - -

The single road through Elmhill village, in the eastern Eregion, was knee-deep in snow, and beneath that was treacherous ice. The wind and the damp bit at Hildan’s winter wools, and the night was starless dark.

When she’d been a girl, even this petty road would’ve been lit with elf-lights, bright and warm. If any had gone out, or if any family was in need, elves would’ve come from the city, dancing over the snow with fire fixed in stones and cloaks as soft and warm as sunlight, and wagons of grain would’ve come from the south even in the depths of winter…

But the Númenoreans soldiers had stolen all the lamps when they first came through, pillaging, burning, and chasing off all but the wildest Elves. They’d built a fort at the end of the road and now any wagons only went there, to be sometimes disbursed to the Númenoreans settlers who thought they could take over land that Hildan’s people had kept for centuries. 

So now there was just Hildan, with her aching back, freezing calves and flickering torch, trudging through the night because someone still had to visit Lothi, Balan and their new babe, and Nethir with his bad leg, and Old Widow Anna…  And Hildan couldn’t send one of her sons out to do it, because any patrol that stopped them would accuse them of plotting rebellion.

(Which wasn’t wrong, the way Hildan’s sons had been talking lately, and much of the true village with them. Hildan hadn’t decided for herself, yet—but for sure, the Númenorean soldiers wouldn’t suspect an old woman.)

She nearly passed by the path to one homestead, worryingly dark though it was. Elin had made her choice when she wed that Númenorean man; she could live with it now.

But there was a figure huddled at the base of a crooked tree, visible only because they were dark against the snow. Hildan rushed forward, tutting with alarm, leaning her torch upright against the icy tree and tutting harder when she glimpsed hair even greyer than her own. 

“Matron, who left you here? Come, up you get, my house is just—”

The figure rose fluidly, raised her hood and she wasn’t old at all—not in the way of Men. Her hair was silver and Hildan knew her for a kindly, laughing houseguest who’d visited every autumn when Hildan was a girl, who’d assured her that Hildan’s family’s trees had grown the sweetest apples in the region for a thousand years.

“Miss Celebrían!”

Hildan yanked the elf’s hood back down, looked anxiously over her shoulder and hissed. “You mustn’t be here! Quick, come, my house is just down the road—we’ll get you hid away—”

Celebrían laughed softly, and fended off her frantic ushering. 

“Don’t worry about me, my dear. None shall know I’m here until I will it! I just wanted a moment to speak with you.”

“Me?” Hildan asked, bewildered. “Why?”

Celebrían sobered, such that she didn’t look young at all. 

“Because your people won’t take up those arms they’re quietly hoarding until you will it, matron,” she said. “And I need you to wait. And keep waiting. We will fix this, I promise you.”

“It is my land too,” Hildan said sharply. 

“I know.” Celebrían caught Hildan’s hands between her own, thin Elvish gloves over thick woolen mittens. “I shan’t forbid anyone from fighting, and nor do your lords—we ‘bandits’ will be in this region soon, and anyone who truly wishes to join us may meet at the northern crossroads, the first full moon after spring planting. But to the less foolhardy, I bid patience—and, harder, welcome.” She tipped her head up the darkened path. “Go see to your kinswoman and her new husband. Bid your new neighbors good day in the street, and teach them to love the land as you do, and those that come after them. They shan’t all be so bad, I promise!”

Hildan squinted at her in the flickering torchlight. She said slowly, “This sounds a very Elvish scheme, or perhaps Númenorean. Miss Celebrían, how long must we wait? Will I see my people free again?”

Celebrían squeezed her hands. Her young-old face was creased with apology, but her voice was steady.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But your sons should. Is that enough?”

- - -

Thirty years ago, Gloreth had tended the wild rose-fields just inland of Harlindon. She could see the sea from the top of her hill, but the biting salt couldn’t reach the roots of her beloved flowers. She’d tended those fields for nine hundred years. 

Now, she picked weeds in some Yavanna-forsaken, perfectly coiffed garden halfway across the Sundering Sea, under the glare of some Man with a whip, who didn’t hesitate to snap it at her back when she moved too slowly.

She worked beside another young elf named Ithilwen, from Ost-in-Edhil itself. Ithilwen was bold enough—or at least, unembittered enough—to steal a few moments of speech, as they walked away from the guard to throw away the latest baskets of ‘weeds.’ 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Ithilwen whispered.

“Obviously,” Gloreth hissed, and ignored her until they were back at work, because stupid questions deserved stupid answers.

“We can,” Ithilwen whispered the next time they discarded baskets of perfectly good local flowers. “Any time. Lord Annatar hasn’t truly abandoned us—the worship of the Black Lord is a ruse. He and Lord Celebrimbor have a plan to rescue everyone.”

“You can take your Lieutenant’s plan and shove it,” retorted Gloreth, whose grandmother had been pulled from the pits of Angband at the end of the Great War.

An exhausting month later, however—exhausting in spirit as in body—she asked, “Do you really mean any time? How can that be?”

Ithilwen did hesitate for a moment.

“How grudging are you really about the ‘Lieutenant of Angband’ thing?” she asked. “Because there is a…minor leap of faith involved.”

Chapter Text

On balance, Annatar was enjoying himself. The loss of his jewel of a city still burned like a brand, and Celebrimbor and many of his lesser favorite elves were under constant threat, out of his reach, or both. And the obsequious manner he had to maintain with the lords of Númenor was wearing thin.

But it was so pleasant to not only flex skills he’d let lie dormant for most of an Age of the World, but to have a real project for which to do so. Celebrimbor’s method of perfecting Arda was so slow that it became seductive, a never-ending series of daily, yearly, centennial minutiae. Now, Annatar held ever-fluctuating thousands of variables in his hands, and with every step of the equation he reduced them—though to the layman they seemed at times to grow—down toward perfect nothingness. 

He took power from throughout Middle Earth where it had long lain quiet and sank it into Númenor instead, weaving his awareness and influence throughout the island-country. He roused the volcano of Meneltarma as a bellows-master woke a forge. He nurtured greed and ambition among the wealthy, and among the would-be-wealthy who were, if anything, greedier and more ambitious yet. Some, he even converted to true, ardent worship of Melkor, rather than the tit-for-tat that Ar-Pharazón expected in his hubris. He reached across the sea, too: directing his puppet-queen of Calador in her relations with Númenor and the Haradrim, whispering discontent to slaves and common Men in Gondor, sparking fear in the hearts of soldiers sent to pacify his Eregion…

(There was also early population drift to direct, building dissatisfaction on Númenor and relief on the mainland, and managing the ever-growing fleet of pirate ships and smugglers. But he left that mostly to Celebrimbor. Annatar didn’t mind playing the villain—but Celebrimbor should be the hero, for his own conscience and so the petty souls he saved might admire him as he deserved!)

Most of all, Annatar enjoyed practicing necromancy again. It was the one craft he’d never been able to convince Celebrimbor to appreciate, much less to practice. (To be fair, it required power and perception far beyond that of a mere elf.) The marvel of a captured fëa in his hands, thrashing in desperate frenzy with every last speck of life and will that Eru had gifted it! The moment of unmatched beauty when it finally submitted and fell still, like a lake returned to picture-perfect after a stone’s ripples finally ceased! And the picture it then reflected, of course, was Annatar’s own admirable will…

Not that he pursued such stillness now, of course. These were not the grand old days of hunting prey through a dark forest or sweeping a net through a bloody battlefield and mauling, warping, breaking to bloodlust and chaining to service... Just a bud of trust watered here, a nightmarish memory muffled there—nothing that stood out from the natural effects of time and acclimatization. He made sure none remembered their time in his grasp with aught but vague reassurance, a downright kindness to the naturally incarnate, and sent them on their way—back to the mainland, or staying on Númenor as spies and saboteurs, or whatever they wished in accordance with his plans!

(A few did insist on being freed from slavery without briefly entrusting their vulnerable fëar to his hands. These, he accommodated when convenient to the grand plan. Conversely, he did have his actual orcish army still growing in the far east. But they were all long-since broken in, and he was quite busy enough without micromanaging. As soon as he’d started corrupting Númenor, he’d slapped the lot with a hard compulsion to keep breeding, training, and staying hidden until summoned, and left them to it.)

On principle, Annatar offered Isildur the chance to stay as well. Unlike Elves, the souls of Men were so naturally flighty that you needed to chain them tightly just to keep them in Arda after death, much less embodied. But Celebrimbor couldn’t object if the boy was willing, and Annatar could think of a use or two for a good wraith…

But Isildur was as wanderlusty as the rest of his kin, and that damn Star lingered above, the straw-haired captain waving a wild invitation. Only once his great-etc-grandson had risen safely aboard did he resume his appointed journey West.

Ridiculous wannabe psychopomp.

- - -

One night, Celebrimbor lay aside his secret notes, took up his Palantir, and reached again for his cousin Galadriel.

I’d like to apologize again for taking Eregion from you, all those years ago, he thought to her. I now have a better idea of how Annatar arranged it, and, well. I can’t exactly regret the total result, but for the hurt to your pride and your rights, and my many stupid parts in it, I am truly sorry.

Galadriel’s ability to express withering sarcasm in the language of pure thought remained unmatched.

- - -

Captain Khôrazón of the NS Seafire , second son of the House of Nindamos, had to concede that these were the most efficient pirates he’d ever met. Admittedly, he’d never observed a pirate crew off-loading their stolen loot—his duties usually lay in hunting and killing pirates. But his father had bidden him to simply inspect these ones instead, like his brother would a potential business partner. So he’d rowed into this hidden cove north of Belfalond, with only a few, particularly loyal crew…

And observed remarkably efficient pirates, as they shifted a full cargo of stolen lumber off their stolen merchant ship and into the wagons which his father had, apparently, arranged to also meet them here. Some must be former Númenorean Navy, he reasoned—though others were certainly Elves. Not so high and mighty now! 

Their leader, who’d introduced himself as ‘Captain Nobody,’ was so plainly Númenorean that he had to be the bastard of someone notable. His ragged clothes and insouciance suited his criminal life, but his high brow could’ve come from a royal portrait.

“…on both the sale and the insurance, and so be paid twice.” Nobody finished reiterating their proposed arrangement with a broad wink. “A man after my own heart, your lord-father!”

Khôrazón scowled. He didn’t like a pirate thinking to compare himself to the Lord of Nindamos. He didn’t like that the Lord of Nindamos had invited it, with this illicit partnership. But nor could he begrudge his family the extra business opportunity, when the king seemed so determined to empty their coffers.

“And what do you want the ship for?” he demanded.

Nobody put a hand over his heart, like a player in a comic drama. “Not for any further illicit activities! I promise you, Captain, on my own mother’s life.”

Khôrazón couldn’t resist. “And who is your mother? Or should I say, your father?”

For a split second, Nobody seemed taken aback. Then he gave the most roguish wink yet, and a sweeping, courtly bow, and announced, “How forward! But because we are to be good friends, my dear captain, I shall tell you: my mother was a wandering seabird, and my father, the evening star!”

Khôrazón rolled his eyes. Pirates. 

Well, the ship they’d bargained away was nothing but an elderly cargo barge—no match for a Númenorean warship, in running or combat. His father’s harbor would look finer without it.

- - -

Annatar had spent many years now ensuring that he knew as close as was possible to everything that happened in the Royal Palace in Armenelos. So it was impressive that he didn’t realize there was someone waiting in his sumptuous rooms, seated at his very desk, until he opened the door.

“You’ve been practicing,” he said warmly. Narmeleth had been an excellent student in espionage as well as ring-craft. But deception, not stealth, had been her strong suit.

Clad as a common footman, blond hair tied just loose enough to hang low over her ears, she stared at him with silent appraisal, flipping a jeweled letter-opener in one hand.

“You hardly amended my memories while I was dead,” she said at last. “Why not?”

“How do you know?” Annatar asked, because he was genuinely curious.

She flipped the letter-opener higher. “I asked Míriel for a Palantir, and recorded every thought I’ve ever had of you right up until the ‘escape’, and checked my mind against it once I was whole again.” She frowned, uncertain and hating it. “And you let me; and while you had me in your grasp, you did naught but lay a faint veil of calm over the last one thousand and seven years.”

“I didn’t notice at all,” Annatar admitted, openly appreciative of her cunning. He approached his former apprentice slowly, though not so slowly as to obviously treat her as a wary wild animal. “I knew I could trust you to uphold your part of our plans, so I’ve paid you less mind than many others.” He offered her a wry smile. “I apologize if it seems that I didn’t care. I have missed you, my dear. But I sought to respect the distance you demanded between us.”

He meant it, too. He hated having fumbled so competent a creature, as a retainer, a co-creator, and even a companion. But he’d learned when to give up the frontal assault upon stubborn Elvish pride.

Narmeleth adeptly hid her heart. But he knew her too well to miss the struggle on her face. 

“I’ve missed you, too,” she finally admitted. “And I’ve missed…this.” She gestured with the dagger, taking in the underhanded, hungry scrabble of the royal court; the carefully manipulated flow of trade, culture, public opinion; the sense of being part of something great and glorious…

She pointed the sharp side of the letter-opener at Annatar’s throat. “But don’t meddle with my mind again. Or I’m done. Do you hear me? And no more assassinations!”

Entirely satisfied, Annatar sat on the desk beside her and teased, “But what if they really deserve to be assassinated? Surely you’ve met a few lords here…”

- - -

Like Aulendilian clockwork, Ar-Pharazón’s forbiddance of anyone moving from Númenor to Middle Earth quadrupled overnight the number of people who wished to move. Smugglers on both sides of the sea, long-since befriended, enriched, and leased many crafted or stolen ships, shifted their business from luxury goods and a few Faithful, to Faithful, or at least Flower-bearers and frightened, and a few luxury goods.

Celebrimbor’s diagrams of conspiracy covered reams of pages tucked beneath his cot, and papered the walls of the Palantir-shared workroom of the Gwaith-I-Mírdain. Rumor flew faster than sea-winds, whispered openly into ears or subtly into hearts: Fields are more bountiful on the eastern shores. Nimruzîr-Elendil has been spotted in Pelargir—no, Belfalond—no, he’s building an army of native Men and runaway slaves in the marshes— The royal council seat will go to whoever raises the most taxes. The lords don’t value your work; the dark priests don’t value your lives; Tar-Palantir would never have allowed this (Tar-Palantir was Faithful, and Elf-friend)…

His controllable variables—as Annatar would say—were more widespread than ever. Manien, once of the Marchwardens, had returned at last to Eregion to lead its retaking; she shared command with Prestor, once of Himring. Eregien Henibleg, first daughter of Ost-in-Edhil, was charged with keeping the veterans from opposite sides of Doriath focussed on their shared goal. 

Tarandir of the Bronzesmiths remained to cast Songs of stealth over refugees of the king’s law, meeting occasionally with his brother Faeldor, who’d taken to piracy like he’d once taken to goldsmithing. Eltiror had been pried away from her sea-charts to break chains and promise freedom in Gondor, coordinating with rangers of Lothlórien and local Faithful, who in turn worked with the greater party of Populists. Tar-Míriel directed the Populists on Númenor, through her own hidden Palantir and numerous secret messages. 

And of course there were his Ringbearers. Zheria in the Great Southern Desert, divorced from most of the Journey-Elves’ conflict, but reassuring him that the Men of Near and Far Harad alike were still restless against the dominion of Númenor, and needed only a successor to Ofechukwude the Uniter in order to rise as one. Amroth and his cohort of younger Sindar and Green-Elves, chomping at the bit to end the skirmishes on the edges of their forests and reclaim the great western woodlands. And Elrond, now turning from ship-claiming and sea-leading to…

(Are you sure you’re okay with this? Celebrimbor asked, as he watched through his young cousin’s eyes as Elrond dressed for his last attempts to convince his brother’s people to flee, in white facepaint and robes matching Elros’s most iconic royal portrait.

I am, Elrond promised. He cracked a very dry smile. It has been so long since Elros and I last played each other—he would enjoy the prank as much as the purpose, I think.)

Galadriel even helped him get in touch with former allies farther yet—the great Trade Guilds of Rhûn, that stubborn idiot Oropher in the Greenwood, etc—so he could promise the cessation of Annatar’s treaty-curses, triggered by their failure to help Eregion in its time of need, if they followed through on the terms now. Most agreed—fifty years and counting of a shattered economy was hard even for tree-brained idiots.

It wasn’t just a matter of evacuating the island of Númenor and breaking the power of its empire—though that would be difficult enough, when the blow had to be even swifter, savager, and more universally effective than Númenor’s conquest of the Elvish northlands. At least the timing was simple: when Ar-Pharazón’s fleet sailed West, Celebrimbor would wait until they were far enough that turning around wouldn’t be worth it, then he’d crash the Palantir network for all but his allies, just as Annatar had for Númenor when they’d first been “captured.” That would be everyone’s signal to attack, from Eregion to Gondor to Harad, to shining Amenelos the City of Kings.

But this whole grand, empire-toppling scheme had to be effective and peace-facilitating long-term, in a way Númenor’s conquests certainly had not been. They had to leave the Númenoreans just humbled enough to accept it, but not pushed to vicious desperation. Those who escaped Elenna had to integrate with the Men of Middle Earth, and they with the newcomers, and all had to abide the shrinking of the Empire down to (Celebrimbor and his allies had decided) the lands south of the Isen and the Eastern Forests, and north and west of Calador. That was why Daerith had designed certain weak points into the new troopships, and Narmeleth was now doing something in Umbar that Celebrimbor preferred not to think about, and Annatar was still building that orc army in the far east that he hoped Celebrimbor had forgotten about…

(Celebrimbor, too, woke at times from dreams of a great Wave swallowing the island whole—all the Elves still on Númenor did. Beleriand hadn’t fallen like that, it had been a piecemeal, crumbling thing. Celebrimbor had thought…

He saw, now, how even a supervolcano would be redundant. Yet by now, Annatar was holding the magma back as much as stoking it to explosion. There was nothing to do but go on.)

- - -

Good, Celebrimbor thought, with vicious satisfaction directed at the Great Enemy of his youth, on whose resplendent altar he lay. His spirit twisted like a burning grip through Annatar’s. For you are mine, not his.

Annatar slit his throat, and watched him die. Celebrimbor’s blood flowed into the ritual ewer and his brain and heart both starved until the bond between hröa and fëa snapped—

It was the easiest capture in the world. From the first moment of their marriage, Annatar had sunk unbreakable hooks into that bright spirit, ready to reel in at the first threat. Often over the years he’d re-examined and strengthened them. He was not going to make Melian’s mistakes. By now, Mandos in full force might not be able to wrest Celebrimbor from him, not without a fight.

His precautions proved unnecessary. The great Summoning-call of Death did sound, but Celebrimbor ignored it freely. He followed their marriage bond straight into Annatar’s grasp, and Annatar held him with all the warmth and fury of the fire at the heart of creation, and tucked him safe within Annatar’s own ever-folding spirit. It was the nature of Elvish spirits to seek rest after the shock of death; Annatar encouraged him, silent-to-any-others Singing a lullaby of mine, mine, most shining and glorious creature. none shall ever harm you but I, and I shall never.

Meanwhile with his body—with both their bodies; Celebrimbor’s being temporarily empty—he turned and led the usual ceremonies of the temple to Melkor. He praised Pharazón and prophecied his victory, his immortality. He did not rush for even a second, even though a bloody slit throat, much less a ritual dissection, was different entirely from the temporary departure of fëa that all the other Gwaith-i-Mírdain had undergone. He could keep Celebrimbor’s fëa well and whole unto the end of Arda if necessary, but incarnates were so dependent on their incarnations, and if Celebrimbor’s petty meat sack was too long without oxygen, even the greatest Songs of Healing would fail. Then the marring would spread to his bright, clever spirit…

To many of the spirits Annatar had held these last years, he’d carefully, oh so carefully, made minor adjustments—nurtured trust, soothed fears, et cetera. Nothing significant enough to notice without obsessive self-analysis.

He did no such thing to Celebrimbor. The damage to his hröa was bad enough—and on top of the delay of the religious proceedings was the delay of the removal of the corpse, and then the delay while Míriel’s people removed it again to a more private place, and then the half-elf was still several hours toward Andúnië for some reason—

Annatar was, objectively, the most skilled in mortal lands at the manipulation of fëa, but he was not going to risk anything further going wrong with this particular operation. Even when Celebrimbor, typically, shoved off his natural soul-weariness and began to poke around in his gentle confines within the gulf of Annatar’s power. Annatar just tugged him away from that which might overwhelm him and placed him instead into a memory of the Lamps, which they both enjoyed. 

.

Annatar would demand it noted explicitly in the record that he is not, was not, had never been and never will be scared of Elrond Peredhel, nor of Elros his brother. He was rationally concerned that these heirs of both Lúthien and Fingolfin were some sort of long-con breeding program to make an ultimate weapon against Melkor and all who served him, likely by Melian but possibly by Yavanna herself. But that was just common sense. 

What only Ainur could understand was how…unsettling Elrond was, in essential nature. A missing stair, a puzzle box at impossible angles, a chord of the most absurd jumble of notes. There was simply too much in him, too varied not to be dissonant—mortal, immortal and timeless, water and flame, starlight and darkness and the unknowable beyond—and it was off-key, and yet, at the same time, all together pitched perfectly.

However, the impossible adissonance made him uniquely suited to bear the Ring of Memory. He Sang a Song of Healing strong enough to rouse the dead, and the accumulated wisdom of Men, Elves and Maiar flowed through it in harmony, concentrated through the exquisite composition of sapphire and gold. In this place, at this task, the Ring’s Power echoed as the ghost of a winged crown on his brow and of guiding hands over his own, once twin, then grizzled but deft with mortal age. 

.

Being dead, Celebrimbor mused, was a lot like getting married, if getting married had been even more like drowning. And burning. And being the most treasured hoard-piece of a massive, monstrous dragon—but Celebrimbor had always understood that. He’d grown up in a house where love could break a people in two and launch a war against the Valar. 

It’s time to go, beloved. Annatar nudged him gently from all around.

One moment, Celebrimbor said absentmindedly.

He was inspecting the setting of the Lamp of the East, which was like standing in the purest, most blazing Light of Laurelin yet infinitely more attuned to his own craft-suited soul. Better yet, he was inspecting it through Annatar’s own memory, so if he looked closely enough, every seamless spot of stone seemed to break down into endlessly smaller pieces that were something like notes of song, something like measurements, something like interwoven facets of glass reflecting images of each other and the stones beside them and every stone in the world, the world which had been and which was and which would be, and everyone who had ever looked at stone like this, endlessly curious, or shaped it ever-crafty, and all the rest that they had shaped or looked at, all of Arda meticulously, mathematically entwined with That-Which-Observed-And-Was-Observed, and Celebrimbor was observing indeed—

Admiration reflected back at him so brightly that it burned— euphorically, as Celebrimbor’s husband tugged him gently up from his eäla’s barest reality. You really must stop doing that, Annatar chided, an instruction which neither of them, patently, had any intention of heeding.

Then Annatar took him more firmly in hand, began a new Song and—

This was necromancy. Being soldered anew into even his own born hrőa, even with infinite care and skill, felt like trying to move a shattered bone—if one’s whole body was broken at once. It hurt so much that Celebrimbor screamed, as a fëa could scream. It was wrong, like the depths of Angband revealed at the end of the War.

Annatar muffled his screams with a searing kiss, and Celebrimbor was glad about that later. Because when he suddenly felt his body enough to realize he had no air, and gasped desperately for a breath—

(It hurt, it was wrong, he was wrong and it hurt—)

—he also heard another familiar Singer, entirely benign, welcoming fëa and hröa together and both whole, whole, whole. The Song beckoned Celebrimbor to life with memories of his mother’s soothing voice, the scent of his favorite forge, and the beseeching stare of Doriath’s princess as he, Eru forgive him, left her locked in her room again just because his father bade him...

So he wasn’t surprised when he pried open his eyes and found Elrond looking down at him with that same drowning-deep twilight stare—though in Elrond, this usually meant he’d just used such great power that he was about to collapse. The illusion of a winged crown on his brow was new.

Celebrimbor blinked, and looked to the side. Celebrían was biting off the last thread from a row of neat, tiny stitches on his throat. She looked up and smiled broadly at him, and Celebrimbor’s lips twitched in automatic reply. 

Each movement hurt a little less, and felt a little less terribly wrong. A little more natural, just like his own fëa had in his own hrőa for all his life (or, those times many bones had been broken at once, and he’d lost a lot of blood). He couldn’t tell if he was settling in, or if Annatar was humming some soothing little tune—

But Annatar wasn’t here. Illogical anxiety rose in Celebrimbor’s throat. Tarandir and Ithilwen were both hovering in the background of what appeared to be a warehouse, and one of his ‘prison’ guards and Anarion Elendilion—good, he’d made it back just in time; that would please the Faithful. But Celebrimbor’s husband—

I’m right here, beloved, where it matters. Annatar coiled around him even more intimately than usual, with the air of a fussing nurse. I will return to your side as soon as I can. Keep resting. Recover your strength. I shall see to all the rest of our business here. 

Don’t be ridiculous, Celebrimbor complained—and was met with obdurate silence.

So naturally he attempted to shove himself upright, demanding answers from his much more reasonable controllable va– cousins and co-conspirators.

“What’s going on?” he asked. Oh, his voice rasped. “Did Pharazón sail? Where—” 

“You almost died—stay down!” Celebrían grabbed his shoulders. “Keep resting, you idiot!”

“Yes, everything is…”

Elrond’s reassurance failed as his twilight gaze rolled up and he fell face-first onto the foot of Celebrimbor’s pallet.

Celebrían switched her focus with an exasperated cry. In her absence, Celebrimbor managed to get one elbow solidly holding his weight, So he started swinging his legs off the bed, and accepted Ithilwen’s swift offer of an arm to lean on. 

“Where is Annatar?” he rasped. “What have I missed?”

Chapter Text

24 Days Before the Fall of Númenor

The plan had been, wait for Ar-Pharazón and his fleet to get halfway to Aman, then break every Palantir connection between them and anyone else, cueing everyone else to start their coordinated military campaigns, slave rebellions, etc. On the mighty Isle of Númenor itself, they’d been going to stage a smooth coup in favor of Míriel and get everyone not rabidly a King’s Man off the island, before setting off the volcano in their wake and leaving the rest to Ulmo.

No plan, however, survives contact with the enemy. In this case the enemies were fear, ignorance, and several decades—several centuries—of pent-up aggression between the various political factions of the Númenorean Empire.

“I told you I could’ve started a civil war in just a few years,” Annatar said idly, sitting on the plinth that had once hosted the King’s Square Temple statue of Morgoth-as-Fëanor-as-a-Man. 

The statue itself has been torn down several days ago by fervent Faithful, as had, more impressively, the statue overlooking the royal palace. The latter had killed two people and destroyed several buildings—including, ironically, the King’s Square Temple—when its would-be righteous overthrowers lost control of their pulleys and sent it careening unstoppably down the hill into Armenelos. The riots had literally caught fire after that. So now the King’s Square statue and temple rubble were part of a hastily assembled barricade around the Square.

“Do you think you might help with this one?” Celebrimbor snapped, shot a crossbow over the barricade and ducked behind shelter again.

“I’m managing a volcano handcrafted by He Who Is Lord of All Forges Beneath the Earth,” Annatar said serenely, and hummed in a way few could hear. Specks of ash drifted through the air—it was not a volcano that wished to wait. “I’m busy.”

A troop of Colonials ran up, then, and began attacking the King’s Men besieging the barricade—and took potshots at the Populists (and Elves) behind the barricade as well, because the Colonials wanted done with Númenorean central authority as a whole, except not in a helpful way.

“Oh for the love of— Everlasting Flame." Celebrimbor turned to Anarion, smuggled back onto Elenna to rouse the people and now crouched on the barricade beside him. “Lend me your sword.”

“What?” the man said.

“Your sword,” Celebrimbor repeated. He held out his crossbow, though Anarión had his own. “I’ll trade you. Shoot anyone who tries to shoot me, would you?”

He pressed the crossbow into Anärion’s hand, leaned over and took Narsil, heirloom of the House of Andúnie, from its scabbard himself. He deliberately nicked one finger on its sharp edge and chanted ancient, guttural words over it.

Maedhros Fëanorion’s old shortsword, gifted to him in friendship by Azaghâl, King of Nogrod, burst into flame like dragon-fire, harmless only to the recognized blood-of-blood of its first master. Without further ado, Celebrimbor raised it above his head and leapt to the top of the barricade.

“People of Númenor!” he cried, with a voice pitched to carry across forges filled with hammers and Song, and a face that matched to a precisely calculated degree that which the Númenoreans had come to associate with power, authority and awe—not enough to recognize; just enough to heed.

“People of Númenor!” he repeated, their attention seized. “Your king and all his lords have betrayed and abandoned you! In their greed and pride, they have brought the wrath of the gods upon you—and in their wrath and their pride, the gods care for you not at all!”

The volcano rumbled as he spoke; the ground shivered. Celebrimbor stood tall.

“But by the foresight of your Queen, Tar-Míriel, and her loyal followers, you may yet be saved!” He pointed south and east with his flaming sword. “Go to the harbors at Nindamos and Rómenna. Mighty ships have we wrought, and they await you…”

One speech rolled into another, as crowd attracted more crowd. It was hours before Celebrimbor was able to step down and extinguish the blade with another bar of chanted Khuzdul. He tossed it back to the wide-eyed Anárion and marched over to mutter to Annatar, “Are you happy now?”

“Immensely,” Annatar breathed, and kissed him on the cheek. “Shall we kill some people for spare ships next—kidding! I’m kidding!”

- - -

Across the sea…

The Ring of Renewal knew the city of its making, and it shone on Amroth’s finger as he strode into Ost-in-Edhil. The city sang back—the stones woke with a steady rumble, broken lamps flashed again, and the deep fires of the foundries began to roar back to life, though no hand touched their bellows.

But Amroth’s fëa didn’t turn naturally to the music of stone and fire. He was happy to help retake his cousin’s cousin’s city, but he left most of the work to the elves of Eregion themselves, and their Dwarvish allies crashing north like a wave from Khazad-dúm. They would know where to step on the shaking stones, how to handle the scattered Noldorin traps still left untriggered. And they could more than manage the host of Men left to garrison the “cursed” Elvish city.

The strength of Amroth, Prince of Lothlórien, was that of blossoming trees and deep roots. So he led his people straight through the city and into the woods—and Cilya’s rousing call harmonized just as smoothly with the Songs with which their ancient kin had woken the trees along the shore of Cuiviénen. That which had been burnt and cut regrew in a flourish, all stretching branches and groaning trunks, flowers and forest-grass, saplings leaping up from ancient bark. That which still stood began to move, to dance—and to reach at last for the invasive bearers of axes and torches. 

.

Zheria the Desert Star, eldest of her people, came north to stand with the heirs of fierce-hearted Finnia, whom she’d known in Cuivienen ere he, Ellia and Ingia were blinded by god-light. She came for ancient friendship and for newer friendship—for she was no niggard, to take a gift like the Ring of Stars and return no aid when it was needed! And she came because with Elinya singing though her soul, she itched when the world was not in tune—and the dam across the Entwash River, whence waters blessed by the Green Lady were meant to bring life to the land, was a sour note if there ever was one. 

She stood with Galadriel and a chorus of Singers of the north, and with the persistence of wind and water, with the heat of flame, the shifting of sand and the driving strength of ancient roots, they shattered the Men’s stone walls. The river burst free and washed the debris toward the sea in a flood like the plains had never seen.  

.

Elendil leapt upon a tall shipping crate and raised his voice above the brawls breaking out across the docks of Pelargir.

“Friends, Númenoreans, countrymen! Faithful and doubtful, free men and former slaves! I have lived among all of you, I have been one of all of you. My father taught me to trust in the will of the gods, and I do—but my greatest faith has always lain with the people of the Númenorean Empire! Pharazón and the King’s Men, and Governor Gimilmagân up in that fort, would make slaves of us all. But we are Númenor! We farmed her lands, laid her roads, sailed her seas and made her prosper!” 

He drew his sword—no Narsil, but no poor substitute either, forged for his hand by smiths of Eregion in exile. He raised it high.

“Put aside now any grievances with one another, and take up arms together instead, and we will reclaim what is ours! Not the Númenor that is, that was stolen from us, but the Númenor that we will build anew!”

.

Ngizo pe’Akhebe of the Eastern Oasis, youngest sister of Ofechukwude po’Akhebe the Uniter, stood upon the foremost mûmak of her army and looked across the plain to the walls of Umbar. They were tall, sheer, and topped with an army of men and terrible war machines. 

She looked back at her people—yes, all her people, though the host of the Eastern Oasis only made up a small portion of the army. They had all come this far with her: ancient foe-kin from the Western Oasis, the wild deep-desert tribes of Men and Elves, the cities of the Shattered Plains united for the first time in centuries… And stranger allies yet. The cannibals of the Red Jungle with their disturbing funeral customs. The legions of Calador as walls of shield and spear, led by their long-lifed Witch-Queen. And beside her on the mûmak, her new blood-brother Elendur po’Isildur, who looked even finer in her gift of crocodile armor than he had in ambassadors’ garb…

Ngizo flushed and returned her gaze to her enemy. There was no reason to delay. She waved her standard high and shouted, “Begin!”

Ikinwe, Chief of the Mûmakilogbi, thumped their beast once on the head. It raised its trunk in a trumpet’s roar and all the mûmakil joined in chorus—and below, the Witch-Queen shouted in the speech of the dead, and up from the wagons between each mûmak leapt her giant dragon-bats. 

The Númenoreans began firing their thunderous cannons at once. The dragon-bats dodged ably, and saved their bone-chilling shrieks until they reached the city walls. Ngizo shuddered and the mûmakil stomped unhappily—but the men manning the cannons began to fall and flee. 

Ngizo waved her standard twice more, its fresh dye bright under the sun: one part green for home, two parts red for kindred and justice. 

“Forward!” she shouted. “This day for blood!”

“This day for blood!” her people roared as one, and advanced. 

- - -

Elrond stood for a long time in front of the statue of his brother Elros. After all these years, all the corruption, hatred, and fading beauty, it still stood at the head of the Hall of Kings at the foot of Meneltarma, scepter raised in one hand and sword pointed down into the pedestal. On his brow, a sea-eagle crown.

Celebrían watched Elrond look upon the statue as the sun sank slowly past the Hall’s tall windows. This, she knew, was the true reason he’d come to Númenor, here at the end.

When the sun passed at last below the edge of the world, she stepped forward and took his hand. This was the true reason that she had come.

Elrond leaned against her. They would need to go, soon, return to their hurried, vital work—but Celebrian just silently squeezed his hand. They had a little more time.

- - -

4 Days Before the Fall of Númenor

Annatar ended up helping to clear out some of the prisons himself. Pharazón had an absurd number of them, some of which even Annatar hadn’t known about, many of which contained children. What was the point of keeping children in prison, if they weren’t valuable political hostages? They weren’t going to learn anything, they were just going to become undernourished and useless for life. You’d think an empire sustained by slaves would have a better sense of its resources.

Though this place was mostly suffering from having been ineptly set aflame several days ago. The surviving prisoners didn’t know who’d started it, the rebels or the other rebels or the King’s Men. Just that half of them were burned or still coughing, the rest were dead, and all of them were still locked up and hadn’t been fed in days. The guards had no doubt joined the King’s bully-gangs now roaming the town.

Annatar and the Populists in his train had formed a sort of relay to get the physically unable to the nearest pier. He was emerging with an unconscious teenager over his shoulder, ready to hand it off to the man trotting up the street (not one who’d come with him from Armenelos; there were locals, too, who pinned flowers to their breasts)—when the tramp of boots and brash voices came from down the cross-street. King’s Men!

But there was a reason Annatar had stayed out of the way once the open rebellion began. He lowered the unconscious ex-prisoner and held it like a bag of trash he was disgusted to be touching, fixed his hair and the ash on his clothes and prepared to inform some loyal fools that Lord Zigur required their services. Of course, he hadn’t been able to stay entirely to the sidelines these last weeks, so it’d been getting harder and harder to pull this sort of thing off… But Rôthkadar was on a point of the island; they likely had little news from the capital.

Then the man with the star on his breast, dashing abruptly toward him, began to Sing—and the voice and the Song were familiar. A Song of snares eluded, trust unbroken, and secrets kept with strength like a tower…

Finrod Felagund drew Annatar to the side beneath an illusion of an empty street corner, as the King’s thugs stomped by. He’d crafted a more skilled illusion than last time, though hastily Sung and soon to falter. The disguise on his form was much better. Finrod Felagund put a finger to his falsely Mannish lips, though they split into a wide, gotcha! grin behind it, and whispered, “Hello again! A few of us came to attempt an evacuation of our own, but it seems like you and Tyelpë have things mostly in hand, so now we’re just helping out.”

Struggling through startlement, Annatar struck with the first weapon that came to mind.

“Your sister has never forgiven you for dying.”

Finrod’s smile fell. He dropped his hand from Annatar’s arm.

“I thought she might not,” he said soberly.

Annatar kicked himself. He needed information right now, not defense. He needed so much information that he hadn’t known until now that he didn’t have.

“She keeps taking it out on me,” he added petulantly, and was rewarded with a renewed spark of levity.

“I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Finrod admitted, as he picked up Annatar’s half-dead teenager. “But you should be warned—the Valar have passed their right of judgment of Númenor back to Eru Iluvatar. So we need to hurry up and get everyone off this island, because Elwing thinks even they don’t know what’s going to happen to it.”

For the second time in less than a minute, Annatar was struck nearly dumb.

“Eru Iluvatar has done nothing in this world since its creation!” he hissed.

“Except to enforce oaths now and then,” Finrod pointed out. But he shrugged.

The hastily Sung bubble of illusion crumbled around them. Finrod adjusted his grip on the unconscious teenager and started to trot back toward the docks. Over his shoulder, he called,

“Tell Tyelpë we’re all skeptical of some of his choices, especially in marriage, but both his grandmothers send their love! Also, remember, I wasn’t here!”

.

45 Minutes Before the Fall of Númenor

They did end up fighting on the docks to get a ship, because of course they did. The Great Music of Ëa was full of reprises great and terrible, and sometimes downright trite. 

This far from Meneltarma, the holy volcano seemed only to spit sparks and tastefully belch black smoke—for now. Annatar had stopped restraining it; it would blow entirely any minute now. Armenelos, golden City of Kings, was already lost to flame. Above the dockyards of eastern Rómenna, the sky was blue and bright, clear for the first time in months of menacing stormclouds and Eagles screeching omens. No warning would save Númenor now.

They fought because the King’s Men had managed to seize the docks, because they meant to…who knew, anymore. Celebrimbor had stopped trying to discern the motives of Men. He just stabbed someone in the gut when they ran at him with a wildly slashing weapon (again) and shoved them sideways into the harbor (also again). He now knew that this killed people.

Annatar loped on his side. He had given up all pretense of humankind; he fought as a massive black wolf, with pupils of fire and a monstrous thirst for blood. Behind them came Celebrían and Elrond, who had picked up a small flock of seagulls that dove screeching at any opponents. Celebrimbor hadn’t seen a bird other than gulls in days—all the rest had sailed away, perched on masts and rigging. All the rest of the Elves were gone as well, he hoped, and all the worthwhile Men of any—

Between one step and the next,

the World 

Changed.

Celebrimbor staggered. He felt rung like a bell, like steel on steel. His weight was suddenly unbalanced. The air sang differently on his cheeks, the harbor waters shifted against their tides—

Reflexively he reached for his husband, with body and spirit. His hand found thick fur, rock-still by his side. His thoughts—

Annatar was always searing heat and fractally infinite patterns, folding, reflecting and observing, focused beyond the smallest dustmote and the wheeling stars to orders of magnitude beyond Celebrimbor’s comprehension. The way he thought, experienced and was in Ëa was so strange to Eru’s incarnate children that the two of them had created entire dialects of Valarin just trying to describe it. 

In this moment, Annatar’s mind was more alien than anything Celebrimbor had known in a millennium of marriage. His body was nothing, Númenor was nothing, the world was song was glass was fire was molded, creation-fire-everything-always-gonealready shock-bafflement-shame-awe Father?

Celebrimbor, despite what some might say, knew when to stop investigating. He withdrew his mind as quickly as possible, now struggling for breath as well.

Yet when he found breath and balance both a moment later, he realized that he didn’t just feel equilibrium—he was invigorated. It was the elated energy of coming off a five-day binge of pure craft, his work, if not perfect, at least finished. And he was, wasn’t he? This whole aching project of vengeance—soon he would collapse, but now, the only thing left was to survive—

“Elrond!” Celebrían was crying, shaking Elrond’s arm. Elrond blinked, and the twilight faded from his gaze. All the gulls had gone, save one who’d swooned to the ground—still alive, Celebrimbor found with relief, as he dropped his sword and lunged to pick her up.

“Take this,” he ordered Elrond as he shoved the bird into his arms, and vowed not to think on it further. “Let’s go!”

He tugged on Annatar’s bloodstained nape and started running. Annatar must’ve been aware of something in the here and now, because he followed, and an arrow that would’ve struck Celebrimbor’s shoulder instead dissolved in a flash of flame.

The Men had gone mad. Music-Deaf though they were, they knew that something had changed, that some deadline was gone. The quays shook as the waters shifted, and Populists and King’s Men, Colonials and helpless farmers and Eru knew what else fought like beasts to get on a boat, to get off a boat, to die in a blaze of glory or a screaming mess or—

Celebrían stabbed someone through the throat and Celebrimbor punched someone in the face and then they were on a mid-sized fishing sloop. One woman was aboard; she wore Pharazón’s golden dragon but she was frantically sawing at the rope that bound keel to dock.

Celebrimbor seized her by the arm. “Do you know how to sail this thing?”

“Yes!” she cried.

“Good!” He dropped her and whirled. “Annatar?”

Annatar was still a giant wolf, blocking half the deck. But there was some awareness back in the flame of his gaze, and when he raised his head in a Howl, the twisting waters rose in tune and shoved them from the harbor. 

Celebrian began in counterpoint harmony an ancient Telerin paean to Uinen, as she leapt forward to pull out the sail. Elrond ran past them all to the helm, shouting, “Hark, Ulmo, Lord of Waters! If ever you have loved my family, now is the time to show it!” The seagull sat on his shoulder now, steady no matter how hard he yanked the wheel—due east, toward a shining star—and added her squawking voice to his.

Celebrimbor threw his whole weight on a sail-rope as well, not that it would help them now—the waters of the world were rising, rising, rising, bearing them the direction they wanted but how fast, how far, how terrible—

“Annatar!” he cried again, as the sea moved with the world remade and Doom bore down on them. “Do something—”

Chapter Text

The World Changed, and—

Zheria the Desert Star lost the note she’d been holding in her Song; lost her footing on the earth she ought have known as a sibling; lost, for a moment, her own self, in communion with Elinya and through it the Great Music of Arda, and the Great Music was changed.

With a last sliver of clear thought she tore the Ring from her hand, from her soul, and cast it as far as she could. Then she fell weeping, vomiting, onto a wheat field in northern Gondor.

Galadriel was beside her in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” Galadriel demanded, checking swiftly for physical injury. Finding none, she reached spirit to spirit. “What did he—”

Zheria cringed from the touch of that blazing fëa. But she managed to shake her head.

“Not– not what you fear.” Her teeth chattered . “Nothing so small. I…”

Words failed her, she who had been present when Elvenkind named themselves the Speakers.

.

Gladariel glared suspiciously at the Ring of Stars, now hidden in the tall grain several feet away. Newly bereft of a partner, it already called to her. She wasn’t an idiot; she knew Celebrimbor had crafted it with her hand in mind, just as he’d made Nenya.

In truth, she trusted her young cousin’s judgment more than she let him know. But too many people trusted his “Annatar”, and someone needed to be ready if that charming facadé at last broke down. 

She retrieved the Ring with a careful handkerchief. She helped Zheria to her feet and saw her to a healer. She continued directing aid down the tumultuous course of the restored Entwash (breaking chains and slaying slavers as necessary). 

Not two hours passed before a distant, desperate wail reached her heart. Mother!  

- - -

The World Changed, and—

Amroth barely noticed, with Cilya blazing on his hand like sunlight through spring leaves. For was this great Change not a kind of Renewal? 

The Lóriendrim had turned south from the forests of Eregion—now they ran, Singing, through the Númenorean lumber-farms towards the mighty shipyards of Lond Daer. Around them, flowers bloomed and forest-grass grew across the clean roads. Creeping vines tightened around the few guards, strangling their ax-arms, holding them still for bowshot. And tall, straight, tamed mast-trees began to sway and dance from their perfect lines, lift up their roots and follow. 

Amroth could hear the harmony of his father and the other portion of their people, striking due west from the Fords of Isen with the same Song and purpose. He could hear his cousin Thranduil Singing through the Northern Forest, coaxing more flame-scarred trees from slumber. He could hear the coastal woods of Harlond and Forlond stirring, and moreover the rising surf, as the Falathrin pirates came home at last. And below them all, so deep it was more Thrum than Song, he could hear the Ents at all their heels, returning the forests to themselves. 

- - -

The World Changed, and—

“Boat!” said young Meneldir, son of Anarion, pointing at the first page of the book on his lap. 

“Boat!” Círdan agreed with the boy on his lap. For a moment, the world shook—but he leaned against the great oak tree at his back, comfortable in Imladris’s sprawling garden, and the moment passed.

Círdan was no warrior, and he quite preferred it that way. Still, he was amused to have apparently been slotted into the wartime role of babysitter of future kings .

- - -

The World Changed, and—

Ngizo pe’Akhebe gave into temptation and kissed Elendur po’Isildur atop the conquered walls of Umbar, with blood on both their blades and her people cheering all about them.

- - -

The World Changed, and—

Míriel shivered as she stepped from the gangplank. As her foot touched Middle Earth for the first time, she knew in her heart that the great Isle of Númenor, her homeland, her home, was gone. Damned by rightful gods, and their own crimes. Drowned until the End of Days. 

From that or her sea legs, she might have stumbled.

Before she could so much as waver, Elendil caught her hands. He turned the motion into a bow and a kiss to the back of each, and then the kneel of a vassal to a liege.

“Welcome, my Queen.” he said clearly, that all surrounding them might hear. “Pelargir is yours.”

She looked around, conscious of her posture with the eagle-winged crown on her head; of the perfect balance required in her gaze, sharp enough to discern yet gentle enough to comfort. 

Anarion came from behind her to kneel beside his father, and Elendil’s lieutenants and warriors followed suit. Then the watching civilians—though there was little distinguishing them. This had been a popular uprising; all present held swords or spears or recently bloodied boathooks. The battle had been hard-won—faces she might have expected to see were missing, and there was grief and weariness in those who remained.

But she could also see energy, and hope. This city still stood, bloodied and a little torn by civil strife, but strong. The docks overflowed with refugees, all those she’d managed to save mingling those who’d awaited her arrival.

New flags hung from the dockside promenade, and a massive banner flew from the governor’s fortress far up the hill. The great royal sun burned golden on black, now encircled by the seven silver stars of the Faithful of Andúnië. 

Míriel found herself smiling, wry but un-bitter. 

Not for 800 years had the people of Númenor been led by a ruling queen—and nor would they be now. Calador and the Haradrim pressed from the south, Rhûn from the east, and the Wood-Elves from the north; and Pelargir may have been at peace, but plenty of King’s Men still ran wild in her lands. Her people needed a proven warrior, and one unsullied by so many terrible secrets of wolves and demons.

But this one would be Míriel’s choice.

She raised Elendil up and turned him until he stood beside her. She took his hand and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, and declared in a carrying voice, “A gracious gift, my King.”

- - -

The World Changed, and—

A few days later, at the start of what would soon be known as the Third Age of Arda, a ship containing five elves and elf-shaped beings washed ashore somewhere south of what had been Lindon, north of what was not yet all Gondor. 

Well, some scraps of wood, rope and canvas washed up, with five elves and elf-shaped beings.

Celebrimbor drifted toward consciousness, summoned by distant, urgent bird-call. 

Black-tipped albatross, female, middle-aged, he categorized reflexively, because one couldn’t spend a great deal of time with first Celegorm, then Círdan, without learning seabird calls.

He tried to open his eyes. He failed. He could hear the distant, circling albatross and he was fairly sure he could feel coarse sand on his skin, and in his mouth. There was sun and salt in the air, somewhere. 

But a veil of infinitely compacted fire smothered every part of him, hrőa and fëa, in and out. The fire did not burn. It just held him so tightly, so securely, that air could barely reach his lungs.

Annatar, I think we’re alive, he thought, charmed as ever by his husband’s clinginess—and mildly surprised to be experiencing it outside of Mandos’s Halls. Annatar would soon be bristling at his lack of faith! You can relax, now, beloved.

Celebrimbor’s fëa remained disjointed from his hrőa—not separate; his thoughts seemed to float in a void within his body, unable to reach the surface. Somewhere far to his left, someone scrambled suddenly in the sand, coughing up what sounded like half the sea. Celebrimbor couldn’t even twitch toward them with osanwë. 

Annatar, he thought sharply. If this is a feature of the new balance of our spirits, it is not tolerable. I will not be constrained! He beat at the burning walls of his cage, uncaring what injury he might do himself. One learned to escalate quickly when married to a minor Power of the World who, despite centuries of debate, still generally regarded others’ free will as a design flaw. Annatar! Sauron!

Still nothing. Celebrimbor started to feel scared, for himself and for his husband. He felt un observed, for the first time since the golden stranger came to Ost-in-Edhil with kind smiles and the seemingly free gift of knowledge. Could a Great Maia fall unconscious?

The recall of Elves was typically perfect. Yet Celebrimbor’s recent memories were as disjointed as a mortal dream. Fighting on the docks of Rómenna, yes, because Reprises of the Great Music were great and terrible and downright trite… The glancing touch of Eru Ilúvatar, which he remembered as fact rather than feeling, too immense to hold in his mind. After that…

Coursing uncontrollably on the crest of a massive wave. Racing desperately in its trough. Tumbling underwater as Annatar Sang—no, Sang something so primal that Celebrimbor couldn’t hear it, could only breathe it.

Clinging to two ends of rope and Singing every ship-song Círdan had ever taught him, every craft-song he’d ever learned or heard or composed himself, for ropes and rings and whatever distant orchestra had been playing when his great-grandfather led his toddling self through the Halls of the Aulë.

The Númenorean woman shouting in his face, sobbing, that all she wanted was for her name to be remembered.

Water on every side, the Wave behind them but the current shifting against them. The sense of a pathway narrowing to a single point.

Celebrian and Elrond clutching one another. Splinters and salt in his teeth. Annatar leaning over the shattering side of the ship and snarling at a thunderstorm that he’d beg for forgiveness later, so long as Ossë helped keep these children alive now.  

…Had he heard Galadriel’s voice, too? That wasn’t possible.

A dark-haired woman in a white cloak leaning off the prow in place of a figurehead, Singing of lighthouses, one hand outstretched like she might grab a towline to the single Star visible through the wave rolling over them.

On the beach, Celebrimbor dove into burning, glaring infinitude and shouted with all his strength, MAIRON!  

Eyes snapped open somewhere, and for an instant, every cell in his body, every thought in his mind and every spark in his soul, was peeled apart by the searing focus of a gaze made to examine all of Arda. It checked him for injury, and murmured praise and pride when it found only a little. 

Then Annatar pulled back from the space between Celebrimbor’s heart and skin where he’d desperately nestled—leaving behind, of course, the power which kept Celebrimbor welded blasphemously together. 

Celebrimbor reached his skin at last, to find that some of the stifling weight had been entirely physical. Annatar lay atop him in the slim Elvish form he’d always favored at home, rather than the more rugged, Mannish one he’d adopted in Númenor. The only difference was his eyes, still distinctly wolf-gold—and still as beautiful as the most finely wrought jewels.

Heat-haze of eäla settling back under his skin, Annatar preened, as he always did when Celebrimbor nakedly admired him. Celebrimbor couldn’t help but smile back.

To their left, Celebrían pushed herself to her knees with a final watery cough, and called, “Who isn’t dead?”

Elrond sat up beside her and waved a weary hand.

The albatross far above gave one final, satisfied cry, and flew straight upward toward the Star that also lingered notably above them. Celebrimbor continued politely ignoring that, because who was he to judge how someone else danced through the loopholes of their assigned Doom?

“Here,” Celebrimbor croaked, and immediately rolled over to spit out a mouthful of sand.

Annatar helped him sit upright, and he looked around. They were on an unfamiliar beach—or maybe, a familiar beach that had been remade. The sea still roiled as though in the aftermath of a terrible storm, though the air tasted of no such thing. The Sun seemed farther up in the sky than it ought to be. 

His cousins leaned on one another, bedraggled and panting. The Númenorean woman whose name he still didn’t actually know knelt closer to the sea, weeping out some sort of gratitude to Uinen. There were a few scraps of wood that might once have been their ship. 

Celebrimbor asked, “Did anyone else…” 

“I was the last soul to leave Númenor.” Elrond spoke with unquestionable certainty. 

He added, biting his lip, “I don’t think…anyone else who left that day… Maybe the day before, or at least…”

“I’m sure Miriel and her escort arrived safely at their intended port,” Annatar offered reassuringly. “No doubt they’ve secured control of the city by now.”

Celebrimbor frowned. “But you don’t know?” 

He could feel, as through a hand clasped to his, his husband stretching out his power and sight through the world-made-new. And unless the angle of the Sun was truly changed, they couldn’t be that far from Pelargir.

“I’ve had other business to which to attend,” Annatar said waspishly. Defensively.

Privately, he admitted, I left a great deal of power in Númenor, and it is…gone. Entirely. From the world. He plucked at the skin between two fingers. I’m glad you enjoy this form, beloved, because I may be stuck for—

Annatar leapt to his feet with a flash of realization and lunged toward the lapping waves, then stopped just as abruptly. 

“No, okay. You still have a route back. That’s. I.”

I didn’t mean to do all that, Celebrimbor alone heard. 

Celebrimbor stood more slowly. He ached in body and in soul, and the pull of the earth against his weight was…off. He went to hold Annatar’s hand and followed his gaze over the sea, and the horizon itself was…strange. Curved?

And the shore unseen across the vast sea called to him, like the West-flying seabirds of Númenor had called. He didn’t think it was a summons for him alone. It hadn’t done that before. 

And the isle of Númenor and all its people, the mighty Isle of Gift raised for the Edain in reward for their valor in the War of Wrath, was gone forever. By Eru’s judgment, enacted in the world for the first time in incarnate memory. At, effectively, Celebrimbor’s prompting.

He clung to Annatar’s hand.

I didn’t mean to…

The waves were still unsettled. Slowly, an eddy grew into a whirlpool, grew into a waterspout—in the shape, with ever-shifting spray and foam, of his eldest cousin. There was a glimmer of starlight on her right hand.

“There you are!” Galadriel cried, half bubbles and half osanwë. 

“Oh, good, you finally took up that ring which Tyelpë made specifically for you,” Annatar drawled, once more perfectly on beat. “I thought I noticed you butting in earlier. Obviously it suits you.”

Galadriel ignored him completely. She looked only to her daughter.

“Ríanya, are you well?” She spared her son-in-law-to-be a glance as well. “Elrond?”

“I’m okay, Mama,” Celebrían promised. She clambered to her feet, tugging Elrond up with her. “Elrond, too.”

Elrond gave another tired wave.

“Thanks be to Eru.” Galadriel’s waterspout dropped to half-height with relief.

Then she roared back to full spate, as she turned on Celebrimbor and Annatar.

“What did you do?”

“We drew the worst of Númenor to its own destruction,” Celebrimbor said, with reflexive defiance. But his stomach twisted.

Galadriel said dangerously, “And I will have the full story of that. In detail. Now, however, I am interested in the army of orcs marching west through Rhûn—save for those who have split off into wild raiding parties?”

Annatar winced, and hid it badly. 

“I will need to be physically closer in order to bring them back under control,” he admitted. “I–” lost so much. Was this a punishment? “–should go alone.” Though his hand clenched around Celebrimbor’s as he said it. “Some of them may remember their first lives, at the moment, and it will make them…unstable.”

Celebrimbor had now glimpsed, many times, an Ainu’s view of handling fëa and hröa. He now lived with the endless inner burn of his own bound together not by natural birth or rebirth, but by chains of ruthless, if loving, power and will. He knew the stories of the creation of orcs, and the stories’ confirmation: the mauling, warping, breaking and chaining, the trapping in a prison even less accessible than Mandos, save when they were called forth to enslavement…

He almost asked, horrified, Anyone we know?

Instead, laughter overtook him, nearly but not quite hysterical. He looked around for his sword, his shoes… 

There was nothing but sand, and a few scraps of what had once been a ship. Rags that had once been clothes. The sea had swallowed all the rest, before spitting them out alive. His last living cousins all looked at him in concern, eldest and youngest and the single left in the middle—as did his dear, slightly repentant monster of a husband, and the poor, bewildered woman still kneeling on the sand.

Celebrimbor didn’t let go of Annatar’s hand, because he didn’t think either of them could endure that just now. He just towed him along, as he went to help the woman to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, and meant quite a lot by it. “I know you tried to tell me earlier, but everything was rather confusing at the time. What is your name?”

“R- Rabaphel,” she stuttered. “Daughter of Rabrahar.”

“Welcome to Middle Earth, Rabaphel!” Celebrimbor said cheerfully. Impressively, a scrap of golden King’s Man embroidery had remained intact on her breast. He tore it loose, cast it into the sea, and clapped her on the back. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

“What?” Galadriel demanded. She was echoed by all the rest, save for those who asked, “Where?”

“Rhûn, apparently!” said Celebrimbor. “And who knows, from there, when we go to free the trapped fëar of the orcs—don’t start, Annatar. I have seen a little of necromancy myself, now, and moreover, I know you. If you can summon an army from the soul-prison, you can triangulate its location. And if we can find it, we can break it. We’ll have help, obviously!”

He spread his arms, to balance on wobbling legs as well as to beckon. Yes, the second Three had been his last great work indeed, and he’d only been more deeply marred since then. (Though perhaps he could reunite with Cilya, on the way east?) But he felt bright and energized, and fey! 

“Come, can you not hear the Music?” he cried, to his bewildered kin and anyone else who might be listening. “The world as we know it has ended yet again, partly but not entirely through our own actions, and all the right-thinking peoples of the world despise my house and our closest allies, or at least are justifiably suspicious of our motives.” His laughter was more openly hysterical this time. “I’m even standing on an unfamiliar new shore!” 

Celebrimbor could feel the lands beyond the sea beckoning him, with their eternal dooms and promises of bliss. He turned his back on them once more.

“By weapons, I have now been slain, but neither torment nor grief has me yet—so it’s time to rebuild yet again. We’ll make something even better this time!”