Under the Curse by Finch

Chapter 1: Under the Curse

Read Chapter 1: Under the Curse

 

Chapter One: Under the Curse

The Mereth Aderthad, the Feast of Reuniting made by King Fingolfin had been splendid and joyous. In the green lands near the pools of Ivrin at the foot of the Ered Wethrin, Noldor and Grey Elves had feasted long under the young Sun and Moon, celebrating friendship, swearing oaths of league and taking counsels to ensure peace for the realms of Beleriand. The shadow in the North had seemed dim and distant to those who toasted under the stars and sang and danced amidst the flowers of spring.

Now, most of the guests had left for their homes. It was a quiet night under a near-full moon, and the remaining Elves, mainly Noldor of Fingolfin's own following, rested beside the dying fires. Some were silent, some were singing softly, while others again spoke of the glamours of past days, or their hopes for the years to come. Ambling alone along the bank of the rushing river Narog, Fingolfin was content, or as content as could be. Elu Thingol had sent greetings by the mouth of two messengers, but his failure to appear at the feast slightly marred its perfection, for it meant that the king of the Grey Elves of Doriath remained on his guard against the Noldor.

As well he might - though he did not yet know why, Fingolfin found himself thinking while he bent away from the loud stream and entered the woods to avoid a stretch of marshy ground. A flicker of guilt leapt up in his heart, but he quenched it. He would not dwell on the Kinslaying, not here, not now amidst these trees whose crowns obscured his view of the sky. There was a glade nearby, he knew, and there he could sit down to dream under the stars for a while, before he went back to his people.

With soundless feet and night-sharp eyes he trod the turf, seeking for a moonlit arch in the wall of black stems. When at last he found the glade he saw that it was not empty; others had gone there before him.

Fingolfin froze in the shadows of the forest. Less than twenty yards away two figures, one slightly taller than the other, were locked in a frenzied embrace, their mouths clinging together. But instead of being male and female, as might have been proper, both were men. They had shed their cloaks, belts and tunics, their leggings were unlaced at the front, and they ground their hips together in a way that left little to be guessed. Even from where he lurked in the shadows he could hear their ragged breathing and their low groans.

The satisfaction he felt about the feast dissolved. It would have been revolting enough if these lovers had been two strangers, or even two members of his retinue. What made it almost unbearable was that one of the two was his own son Fingon.

Fingolfin averted his face, without even having seen who the other was. Aghast, gasping for air, he took a step backwards to lean against a tree bole, his mind reeling, his soul in turmoil. He had not wanted to know this. He fervently wished to leave, to slam the gates of his memory shut on this unbidden vision – or to believe it was a deceit of the Enemy, used against him to destroy his peace, visited on him for his part in the wrongs of the past.

Yet he knew it could not be so.

In a few strides he was inside the glade, taking care to make just enough noise. And indeed, as soon as the two heard him they backed away from each other, their faces deathly pale in the silvery moonlight.

Fingon uttered a strangled cry when he saw his father. The other, the taller of the two kept his silence. Now Fingolfin recognized him, one copper braid flaming against the white skin of his bare shoulder, the wild gray eyes in his handsome face forever clouded by the memory of unbearable agony. His left hand rested on his hip. His other arm was hidden by his body, but Fingolfin knew it ended in a stump.

It was Maedhros, the son of his half-brother Fëanor, and Fingon's cousin. Half-cousin, Fingolfin said to himself, clutching at the thin straw line that separated this ignoble act from the worse outrage of incest.

At times they had left the feast together, carrying swords to suggest that they intended to spar. Not once had he suspected they would do aught else. The blades were unsheated, he saw, lying discarded in the grass. Had they fought to heat themselves, to edge each other on?

His son and Fëanor's had been close friends in Valinor, from the time Fingon was still young in years. Maedhros had been his example and teacher in many things until they became equals, sharing many pursuits and pleasures. But pleasures of what kind? Fingon's father had cause to wonder now. Could it be they had become lovers in the Blessed Realm, even before the lies of Morgoth and Fëanor's madness led the Noldor astray, and the curse of Mandos fell on them? Fingolfin cringed at the thought.

They stood motionless, all three; years could have fled by as easily as heartbeats when at last the king spoke, forcing the words over his lips. 'When did this start?'

It was Maedhros who answered in a steady voice. 'After he freed me from my torment on Thangorodrim, where Morgoth hung me naked from the rock face by one wrist. Your son came to my aid even though he believed me to have betrayed him when the ships burned at Losgar. He helped me overcome the loss of the hand he had to sever. He taught me to wield a blade with my other hand until I could best him. Who would have done as much, my lord?' The voice grew fierce. 'All praised him for rescuing my body, none praised him for saving my mind, not even you.'

'And to show him your gratitude you took him for a mate, to rut like animals in the woods?' Fingolfin spat, though in his heart he was relieved to hear this taint did not hark back to Valinor.

'No!'

It was Fingon who spoke. Fingolfin turned towards his son, who had begun to lace up his leggings with none too steady fingers, though his eyes held a challenge. 'He took naught,' Fingon said. 'Do not vent your anger at his sire on him, atarinya*! Between us, there is no taking, only giving. Thus it has been from the beginning. But we did not recognize our mutual need and longing, nor the true nature of our bond, until the Eagle bore us back from Thangorodrim, Maedhros resting against me, while I tried to stem the flow of his blood with my hands.'

'Indeed,' Fingolfin said darkly. 'You do have blood on your hands. As has Maedhros. As have I. The blood of the mariners of Alqualondë, our kin, whom we slew for no just cause. It is the curse of Mandos, the Doom of the Noldor, that has brought you to such perversion, and condemns me to witness it. This is wrong. When the Quendi first awoke beside the waters of Cuiviénen, each man had a woman beside him, and that is how things must be.' He thought of his own spouse, who had refused to leave the Undying Lands with him. 'And if you can or will not see this is a violation of our very nature, will you at least save a shred of dignity, and cease?'

Fingon was finished with his leggings. Now he dropped to one knee before Maedhros and raised his hands. For one moment, Fingolfin feared his son would defy him by doing the unspeakable before his very eyes. But Fingon merely knelt to lace up Maedhros's leggings as well. Belatedly it struck Fingolfin that this was an act difficult to perform with one hand; his son wanted to spare his lover the embarrassment of having to fumble with his clothes before such unkind eyes as those of the High King Fingolfin. The mocking smile on Maedhros's lips was the image of Fëanor's, and Fingolfin hated him for it.

Then he saw his living hand, the left one, go up as by old habit, and caress Fingon's long, black plaits.

'Will you cease?' the king shouted desperately, knowing it to be vain.

His son rose to his feet, exchanging a look with Maedhros. For a long time they spoke not, and he saw their chests heave and fall as one.

'My lord,' Maedhros answered at last, 'I relinquished the high-kingship of the Noldor to you, and I will defer to you in all other things – but not in this. Shout it from the hilltops if you must, that all may despise us and cast us out, but I shall not cease unless Fingon bids me do so, for I love him.'

'Neither of us is bound to a woman, nor will we be, bound as we are to one another,' said Fingon. 'If this will add to our stay in the Halls of Mandos, even to the end of the world, so be it. But I deem that the Kinslaying brought us as low as we could fall. Compared to it, even this… taint seems a virtue. I will not leave him.' His mouth set.

Then you are my kin no more, Fingolfin wanted to say. Suddenly he shivered in the night wind, though he was fully clad. They were still half-naked, yet they did not shiver, as if their hearts were hot enough to keep all chills at bay.

He did not speak the words. Instead, he turned away to stride from the clearing. He did not look back to see what they would do, and shut his ears to what they might say yet.

Groping his way back through the woods as if his sight failed him, Fingolfin brooded on their words, attempting to comprehend his own son and his brother's, marveling at this ill chance, or strange fate, that had befallen them in these dying lands. By the time he could see the stars again he had decided not to let it come between them and him. Divided, none of them would stand against the Shadow.

And though he knew it was not in his power to forgive these two, he dearly wished that he could.

---

Chapter End Notes

* Quenya for 'my father'

Chapter 2: Brother and Lover

Relation Fingon/Maedhros implied, but this is mostly about Turgon's problem.

Some preliminary remarks: I have noticed that most fanfiction writers consider Fingon to be the father of Ereinion Gil-galad, which implies he was married. But in The Shibboleth of Fëanor, (HoMe 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth) we read that Fingon had no wife or child; see also note 35 to this essay. This is the only reason why I have the evil courage to write Fingon/Maedhros slash, though I am convinced it wouldn't help me at all if I were faced with the wrath of J.R.R. Tolkien.

As for Gil-galad's parentage, Tolkien’s last word about this subject was that he was the son of Orodreth, who in his turn was the son of Angrod, and not the second son of Finarfin. To quote Christopher Tolkien: 'Much closer anylasis of the admittedly extremely complex material than I had made twenty years ago' [during the compilation of the Quenta Silmarillion] 'makes it clear that Gil-galad as the son of Fingon was an ephemeral idea' (Shibboleth of Feanor). I follow the original author's final decision in all my fanfics.

Disclaimer: Dependent on Tolkien's works.

PG-13 for some dubious language & very mild slash.

Read Chapter 2: Brother and Lover

Chapter Two: Brother and Lover

The Feast of Reuniting was over, and those lands of Beleriand where neither Elu Thingol nor Círdan the Shipwright held sway were to be divided among the exiled Noldor. At the feast, serious talks never had a chance to last beyond the first courses of the banquets, and further meetings were called for. The newly built citadel in Dor-lómin was the nearest place to go, so all the princes of the Noldor repaired there, from the High King to the youngest of Finarfin's sons. Maps of Beleriand copied from the archives of Doriath had been refined and redrawn after years of reconnaissance by the Noldorin scouts, and on them, plans were sketched and revised.

Fingon secretly rejoiced in the presence of his cousin and lover Maedhros, though his joy was dimmed by the awareness that all too soon they would have to part. That his father turned them a cold shoulder whenever he saw them together made it no easier to bear. But Fingolfin was above spreading rumours, of that his son was convinced. No one else would discover them, if Maedhros and he would show restraint until they could share some privacy.

Or so he thought.

And so, he thought nothing of his younger brother Turgon's visit to his room, a week after their arrival - except that he hoped it would not last too long, for he expected Maedhros to join him before nightfall.

Turgon did not look happy, and he declined both the wine and the seat Fingon offered him. Instead, he went to stand at the window to the west, gazing out over the outer court, and the walls, and over the forested, undulating hills bordered by the distant Mountains of Shadow at the very edge of Elven-vision. And beyond the mountains were the Great Sea, out of sight, and the Blessed Realm, out of bounds to the Noldor.

Just as Fingon began to feel impatient, his brother turned and walked back to him, yet still without seating himself. 'I need you to answer a question for me,' he said tonelessly.

'Ask it.'

'Is it true what I think?'

A shiver ran down Fingon's spine, but he decided to put up a fight. 'And what is it you think?'

'That you mate with one of his brood,' Turgon snarled. Since the Helcaraxë, he refused to speak Fëanor's name.

'What makes you say such a thing?' snapped Fingon, angered by his brother's choice of words.

'Your eyes betray you. Both of you.'

Fingon was relieved it was not their father who had been loose-tongued, inwardly chiding himself for thinking he might have. 'Name him,' he demanded.

'Maedhros!' Turgon's mouth curled downwards. 'But you haven't answered my question yet.'

'It is true.'

Turgon hissed. 'Do you have no honour at all?'

Not his brother, too! Fingon jumped up. 'Go ahead,' he cried hotly. 'Tell me I am a pervert who broke our laws. Tell me I am accursed because I reddened my sword on the quays of Alqualondë.' He pointed at the door.' Then count yourself blessed that you did neither, and get out of here before you run the risk of crashing into my lover.'

His brother cast a glance over his shoulder as if Maedhros was about to appear. Yet he did not leave. 'Pervert? Breaking our laws? You can bed your favourite hound, for all I care! Just not one of those treacherous dogs!'

Fingon had expected his brother to share their father's reasons for condemning him, and for a moment he was taken aback. Then his fury overrode his surprise. Loath as he was to use violence against one born from the same womb, he did consider it now. 'This is ridiculous. Take it back! Maedhros is no traitor. Not he!'

'I know that is what he claimed,' Turgon replied scathingly. 'The faithful friend, kindly requesting his maniac of a father not to set fire to the pretty ships. Are you so taken by his charms and his other attributes that you believe this? Has the Grinding Ice affected you so little?'

There it was again. The Helcaraxë, the freezing hell of the North. Searing cold, numbing them into lethargy, laming the will to go on. Jaws of ice snapping shut without warning on the strong and the weak alike. His fathers hoarse voice, shouting them into motion whenever they halted. A crust of tears gnawing at their cheeks. Tramping the snow without feet. Galadriel, yelling incomprehensibly at them. Finrod, trying to drag a half-frozen boy along.

The screams of Elenwë and Idril when the wall of ice crashed down; Turgon launching himself at them, getting buried by ice himself but pulled from underneath it in the nick of time, clutching his daughter in his arms - but not his wife.

Elenwë was dead and gone to the Halls of Mandos.

And Turgon set foot on the Hither Shores with most of his heart gone.

Because the ships were burned at Losgar.

'Because of his own generosity, Maedhros was reconciled with our Father,' he pointed out.

'But not with me.'

'He bears no guilt!' Fingon said vehemently.

'Fool!'

'Who is a fool?'

They wheeled. Maedhros had come in, earlier than expected, and frowning at Turgon's presence.

'I am,' Fingon told him.

'Why?'

'For loving you.'

His lips tightening, Maedhros searched Turgon's face. 'Since when does love take its lead from reason?'

'Would that it did,' Turgon retorted. 'For if it did, it would not be so blind to treachery.'

Fingon's lover closed in on him. The two were of equal height, the tallest of Finwë's grandsons, but Maedhros was broader in the shoulders, and stronger. 'Why do you presume to know me better than your brother does - were you ever as close to me as he is?' he asked in a dangerously low voice. 'Have you ever sworn an oath that would teach you the meaning of treachery? Have you ever even gainsaid your own father?'

Fingon's brother blinked, but stood his ground. 'I know what was done to me. I do not take anything back.'

A prolonged silence, pierced by fiery gazes, until Turgon looked away. 'But I will take myself out of here,' he went on, 'so you can take your pleasure of my gullible brother - who will swallow any kind of filth from you.'

Maedhros made a strange sound, and struck. The next moment found Turgon sprawling on the floor.

Fingon took a step towards his brother and bent over him. Then he checked himself.

'Should you not help him up?' Maedhros said, sounding hurt. 'Your little brother, floored by his big bad cousin whose taints are so contagious?'

Fingon balked. Why were they both making it so difficult for him? 'If I knocked one of your brothers down, would you help him up?' he asked.

Suddenly, Maedhros laughed. 'Depends on the brother. Some of them deserve a blow any time. But you have only one living brother left.*' He glanced at Turgon, who scrambled to his knees, rubbing his jaw. 'I think he has a problem; perhaps you should try to lay it bare, Fingon. Meanwhile, I shall go outside to cool myself in the drizzle awhile. When I see him leave, I will return.'

Fingon nodded, all gratitude. 'Love partly does take its lead from reason, it seems.'

Maedhros smiled a somewhat crooked smile, and left.

'Sit,' Fingon commanded his brother, who had regained his feet.

Turgon obeyed, jamming his hands between his thighs.

'So you miss Elenwë.'

'Ah, so you noticed. Good.'

'Spare me any further sarcasm.' Fingon snapped in exasperation. He leaned forward, and moderating his tone he went on: 'I know you will never stop grieving for her - a grief I do not even presume to fathom. But what I meant was that you also miss her bodily.'

Turgon looked at him. The expression on his face was all the answer Fingon needed. He poured his brother a cup of wine. This time, far from declining, Turgon took it and drained in one draught. 'We were one soul and one body,' he whispered into the empty cup. 'There are times when my bed seems as dark and cold as the Void. But why am I so absorbed by it?'

A silence fell. 'There is no shame in that.' Fingon finally said, pouring him more wine. 'Yet even if the battle is hard, if your fëa has to struggle to retain the mastery over your hröa** - and the Valar know Maedhros and I have suffered defeat - to take it out on others -'

He faltered. His brother was shaking his head in a most significant way.

'My fëa mastering my hröa?' he said. 'Why do you think I did not denounce your breaking of our laws? Just because I am such a tactful and considerate person - or because I am too bloody afraid to speak my mind?' He emptied his second cup and held it out to Fingon, who refilled it after a slight hesitation; the cups were quite large.

'What happened?' he wanted to know, taking a sip of his own wine.

'I slept with another woman,' Turgon replied bluntly, 'without the excuse of love, or infatuation, or even affection. It could have been any woman, except that almost none of them want a married man, even though his wife is dead, for they know as well as you and I do that such vows last until the end of Arda. One look and they see you are bound, one word and they hear it***, and they turn away. This woman did not turn away. I lost my wife to the Grinding Ice and was left with a daughter, she lost her husband and was left with a son. We began by commiserating, and ended up copulating.' He drank deeply again. 'Twice, and we kept our eyes closed both times and pretended to be with someone else. But then we found we had a hard time facing our children, for fear they would perceive we broke our vows - to my wife, to her husband. So we ended it. Yet we did break our vows, wittingly and knowingly. Speaking about treachery. That mad dog was the first to betray Elenwë, and I am the second.'

Seeing his younger brother's agonised face, Fingon was at a loss for words.

'So you see why I do not bask in blessed innocence,' Turgon continued, his voice embittered. 'The Curse has not passed me by, and I don't know which of us two our father would give a harder time if he found out about us: you, for lying with a man you love, or me, for breaking my vows with a woman I could and would not love at all.'

Fingon took a deep breath. 'He knows about Maedhros and me, and I can tell you he was very harsh on us. And though I do not think you transgressed as badly as we do, you can count yourself lucky you were more... discreet.'

'I am every bit as bad as you are.' Turgon said and emptied his third cup of wine. He blinked. 'Fingon, forgive my ugly words, please.'

What an odd little brother he had. One moment tight as a clam, the next one completely open and vulnerable. Hopefully the clam would not snap for good in the end. But that was far from certain, for even now Turgon's confession remained incomplete. He had avowed everything, except his jealousy, misplaced as it was. 'There is one matter that needs to be resolved before I can say either yea or nay,' Fingon said slowly. 'Do you still claim that Maedhros is a traitor?'

With a slightly exaggerated shrug Turgon answered: 'I will trust your judgment of him.'

'Then I will forgive you,' Fingon decided, knowing it was the best he would get. 'But if you intend to get seriously drunk, could you please do it elsewhere?'

Turgon put down the cup and rose. 'I am steady enough on my feet, see?' He walked a straight line to the door.

When Maedhros returned to Fingon's room, his coppery hair moistened by the rain and curling more than usual, the first thing he asked was: 'Did you put a spell on your troublesome brother, or what?'

Fingon pulled him close and they embraced tightly, as if they could crush the guilt between them with the force of their bodies. Hesitatingly, he raised a hand to wind one of the damp ringlets at Maedhros's left temple around his finger. 'Just poured three fast cups of wine into him,' he replied after a while. 'What did he say to you?'

Maedhros laughed wryly. 'Three cups, during the short period I was in the yard? That explains it.'

'Explains what?'

'He said: Have a good time.'

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*According to The Shibboleth of Fëanor (HoMe, Volume 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth), Fingolfin had a third son, Arakáno or Argon, who fell in the first battle of Fingolfin's host with the Orcs, the Battle of Lammoth.

** see: Laws and customs among the Eldar (HoMe, Volume 10, Morgoth's Ring). Turgon's 'sin' amounts to double adultery.

***soul & body

As for Elves getting drunk: remember Angrod's words about listening to the words of Fëanor and becoming "as if besotted by wine". (Not to mention the butler Galion in The Hobbit). Obviously, even Elves did not always hold their liquor.

Postscript: Turgon really took me by surprise when he made his confession, or this would have been a different story. Some characters will wiggle out of your grasp.

Chapter 3: The Fire-Dragon

Based on the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

Disclaimer: Exists only because of Tolkien. But I'm to blame for the Fingon/Maedhros pairing.

Guest star: Glaurung the Evil Urulókë or Fire-Dragon, who has come to stay for a while, I'm afraid.

Rating: R

Read Chapter 3: The Fire-Dragon

 

Chapter Three: The Fire-Dragon

Fingon remembered they had never seen such a beast before. Huge it was, with jaws full of vicious teeth, blade-like claws and a long, sinuous tail. It was covered in scales the colour of ash - and it breathed fire. Belching and scorching its way over the lush grasses of Ard-galen, leaving a foul swath in its wake, it had approached the newly established realms of the Noldorin lords. The Elves had fled before its all-consuming flames, scattering towards the Ered Wethrin and the Hills of Dorthonion.

But not all of them. I will not turn tail to a mere beast, Fingon recalled thinking. And so, with a company of mounted archers, all seasoned warriors, he had crossed the mountains to halt the Dragon's progress.

Morgoth's evil spawn was not as huge as the panicked reports had made it to be, but more gruesome to behold, and its stench was overwhelming; the Noldor had to breathe through their mouths to avoid gagging. Steeling themselves, Fingon and his companions surrounded the beast. Sunways they galloped around it, firing arrows at its head and chest, ever aware of its flame-belching maw. Closer and closer they hemmed it in, until those nearest to its huge jaws were within the reach of the fire.

When it came, a gush of garish red and orange flames, its target was Fingon. He barely managed to dodge it, hugging the flanks of his horse with his knees to urge him away from it, while his bow fired once more at the dragon's eyes.

His aim was too hasty to be true, and the dart stuck between the slimy scales on the beast's forehead. Swiftly, Fingon pulled out a new one and put it to his bowstring. Then, his glance met his foe's.

The eyes were those of a snake, yellow, lidless, with slits for pupils, staring, unblinking, as cold as the flames in the dragon's belly were hot, and as weirdly beautiful as the rest of the beast was hideous to look on. But unlike a serpent's, they were sentient. Far from being a mindless beast that could but reflect the evil of its maker, this was a creature of subtlety, a demon of malice in the shape of a monster. It saw. It knew. Fingon felt himself weighed and measured and found wanting: a rebellious Noldo, a Kinslayer, a soul tainted with an unnatural love for one of his own sex. And then a fell voice spoke directly into his mind, with terrible clarity:

Hail, Fingon, son of Fingolfin. A brave warrior you are. You may win the day, for I perceive my time has not yet come. But I am Glaurung the Urulokë, and I tell you that you are doomed. You will remember these my words when your time comes, and despair.

Black vapours billowed from the dragon's nostrils, obscuring part of the sky. With the hiss of its breath and the hiss of his companion's arrows in his ears, Fingon drew nearer to those cold, glittering, alluring eyes, heedless of peril: If I am doomed, so are you. You are clever and fearsome, but you will find your bane scant years after I find mine, Glaurung the fire-drake!

He did not know whence those words came, yet he knew them to be true.

As true as the dragon's.

Once more Fingon raised his bow, to shoot a last arrow - right into the dragon's mouth. With the shaft protruding from its forked tongue, the great monster turned away. The archers to the north moved aside to let it pass. And the dragon fled back to its evil master.

On their way back home, the other warriors all praised Fingon to the skies. By the time they met the company of the High King, who had had the same thought but a little later, Fingolfin's son was the greatest hero of Beleriand. Fingolfin looked proud, never begrudging his offspring his glorious victory. Yet to Fingon the triumph rang hollow. He knew he would never forget Glaurung's words.

To make things worse, his father had more words for him, later, in private.

'Not that I want to diminish your victory - but now that you have defeated the dragon without, it is time you fight the one within,' he said. 'The beast whose unholy fire burns in your loins.'

It was no victory, atarinya*, Fingon wanted to tell him, and if it had been, you could not have diminished it more effectively than you did. But Fingolfin's tone made such an admission impossible. So he said instead: 'And what arrows do you suggest I use to that purpose, my lord High King? The barbed ones coming from your mouth? Why should I not rather fire arrows of love to defeat the dragon burning in my cousin's soul?'

'Are you sure that it is within your power to do so?' Fingolfin countered after an uneasy silence.

Their eyes locked, and they knew that both of them thought of the blasphemous Oath with which their kinsman Fëanor had kindled an everlasting, dark flame in the souls of all his sons.

It was Fingon who finally looked away, as he had not done when he faced Glaurung.

He remembered it all vividly when Maedhros's gift arrived. Of course, it had to come at a moment when the High King and the mortal lords of Dor-lómin visited Fingon in his halls in Hithlum.

The helm was huge, like the dragon it represented. It was made of grey steel adorned with gold and on it were graven runes of victory. According to the letter Maedhros sent with his gift, a power was in it that guarded any who wore it from wound or death, for the sword that hewed it was broken, and the dart that smote it sprang aside. It had a visor, and the face of one that wore it struck fear into the hearts of all beholders, but was itself guarded from dart and fire. Upon its crest was set in defiance a gilded image of Glaurung the dragon.**

For all those present, Eldar and Edain alike, it was a source of wonder. Was this ever worn by a mere Dwarf, several of them asked. It seemed much too large for any member of this stunted race. Fingon, convinced that few of them would be able to carry its weight for long, pointed out that Dwarves were a sturdy people and deserved to be given their due.

He lifted the helm, holding it between his father's dark frown and his own, wry smile. No doubt Maedhros, knowing his lover's strength and the measure of his shoulders better than anyone present save one, had sent his present half in jest. Though he knew he was capable of wearing it, this helm would never sit easy on Fingon, prince of Hithlum. Yet coming from the other half of his soul it was already precious to him, a token of love as much as a compliment for his valour and prowess.

And Maedhros, of course, could not know about Glaurung's warning.

'I wonder,' his father's voice said aloud from behind the metal dragon head, 'who will be able to wear this in battle without sagging under the weight.'

'Would you like to try, atarinya?' Fingon turned towards Fingolfin, in the certainty his sire would never wear a gift from this giver.

Fingolfin made a dismissive gesture. 'Not I,' he replied. 'My own helmet suits me excellently, and I have no wish to look upon my foes from beneath a fell beast of Morgoth.'

'But my lord King,' spoke young Galdor, the son of Hador of Dor-lómin, ' if Morgoth's hordes will cringe at the look of this thing, what's wrong with wearing it?' He eyed the helm almost avidly.

Fingon lowered it. 'None, I deem.' He could see that Galdor was among the few whom this helm would fit.

'Try it on, then, Galdor,' Fingolfin said with a decidedly unpleasant smile.

Galdor shook his head. 'Not before my sire, lord Fingolfin. And he, having come into his full strength, would bear it with more ease than I would.'

Which was only too true. All eyes turned to Galdor's father. He was not the greatest warrrior among those present, for such a claim could be made by Fingolfin alone. But few would deny that golden-haired Hador had the broadest and strongest shoulders of all, and it was Fingolfin himself who promptly cried: 'Aye, and it seems made for him!'

'It was a gift to your worthy son, my lord King,' Hador Lorindol spoke gravely in his deep voice. 'I would never presume to lay claim to it.'

Hador was sincere enough, yet Fingon knew that only one course remained open to him. His father would never in so many words denounce or shame him. But he had subtly and effectively tarnished both gift and giver with his slight, and then robbed Fingon of his lover's token in all but fact.

It was not Fingon's wont to hesitate. He stepped forward and held out the Dragonhelm to Hador. 'It is yours, my friend,' he declared solemnly.

The Man took it with a graceful smile and began to express his gratitude; the by-play seemed to have escaped him, which was just as well.

Fingolfin smirked. 'Will you not put it on?' he encouraged Hador.

Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise, Fingon told himself, feeling hollow. Was a dragon in one's loins not enough to cope with? Surely he did not need another one to sit on his head? And it was not as if this thing would protect him against Glaurung himself. A dragon would never be daunted by his own image.

Hador lifted the helm to his head. Of course, it fit perfectly.

'Do not reproach yourself. Under the circumstances, you could hardly have acted otherwise without offending the House of Hador and alienating your father even more,' Maedhros told him, on a summer day many years later. They lay entwined, their fire spent, their unbraided locks, jet and copper, mingling with the fern leaves of their forest bed. Fingon had sought out his cousin and lover on the Hill of Himring, and they had wandered as far as they knew they must to remain undetected.

'Now, if I had wrought this artifact myself,' Maedhros went on, not without irony, 'I might have felt slighted indeed.' Lifting the stump of his right arm he added wistfully: 'But I never made a thing since I set foot in Middle-earth.'

Fingon cupped the stump with his right hand and gently placed it on his own chest, where Maedhros's previous gift rested, a green gemstone wrought by Fëanor himself. 'This, I would never give away. Nothing and no one could induce me to do so. I would rather be found lying here at your side by the assembled armies of the Noldor.'

Maedhros chuckled. He did not withdraw his mutilated arm, as he had used to do the first few times they were together - something for which Fingon was intensely grateful. 'There will be no gathering of armies any time soon,' he declared confidently. 'Morgoth is confined in Angband, and Beleriand has peace. Or we would not lie here so heedless of any perils but discovery and shame.'

When Fingon remained silent, Maedhros did withdraw his arm after al. Raising himself on his elbow he bent over his lover to search his face. His hair hung in curtains on either side of his head, reaching all the way down to Fingon's cheeks and reducing the world to the space between their eyes. 'What troubles you?' he asked. 'Unburden yourself.'

Fingon sighed deeply. 'My father,' he said at last. At Maedhros's slight frown he briefly shook his head. 'Not because he made me give the Dragonhelm to Hador Lorindol. It is what he said afterwards, when I congratulated him on his clever manipulating. He wondered what he would have to do next to induce me to turn away from you, wed and get an heir.'

'And what did you tell him?' Maedhros wanted to know, sitting up and placing one leg over Fingon's body to straddle him, his knees hugging his lover's hips, his eyes the colour of storm clouds.

Fingon felt the dragon return to his loins again, rearing its fiery head. Baleful and barren, he found himself thinking, flames that scorch and consume.

'Did you tell him,' Maedhros continued, 'that you are already wedded, but that neither you nor your spouse are likely to breed? Besides, why should he want you to beget an heir? Surely he does not plan to die of old age, like his mortal allies will?'

'I wish I knew,' Fingon murmured. His father was unaware of Glaurung's prediction; he had never uttered one word about it. Could it be that Fingolfin foresaw his own death and feared the end of his House? The only male heir after Fingon was his younger brother Turgon, who only had a daughter and would get no heirs after his wife had perished. Not knowing what more to say he pulled Maedhros towards him and kissed him roughly, bruising both their mouths.

'Could it be,' insisted Maedhros between two kisses, 'that Fingon the Valiant is afeared? That the hero who chased the dragon away has succumbed to some nameless dread?'

His tone was light, but he came disturbingly close. Fingon thought of the fiery dragon he could not overcome, nor would. Should he speak to Maedhros about Glaurung's prophecy? But he found he could not add another burden to his cousin's woes. He could not tell him he dreamed of this beast, and that it in every dream its size increased ever so slightly.

Hopefully, Maedhros considered his question to be a rhetorical one. 'Do you know,' he murmured finally, 'that my father saw fit to compare our love to a dragon's fire?'

Abruptly, Maedhros's gaze became a glare, acquiring the disturbing quality that could make anyone cringe, save those who loved him and knew the depth of his suffering. 'Did he, now? Does he believe that it resides in the belly alone, and not also in the heart?' he asked. 'Has he never learned that fire is death and life in one? That it is both terrible and beautiful? That it consumes and heats at the same time? That while it destroys what it feeds on, it spreads light? That without it we will freeze to death and perish in the dark?'

He put his left arm under Fingon's shoulders and pulled him up, pressing him against his chest with crushing strength. His voice filled with passion, and Fingon felt his hot breath against his cheek. 'If I can give you light and heat by being consumed, I will not hesitate to burn. And if he goes on saying our love is a beast, tell him to look for the light and the beauty.' He dropped sideward into the ferns, rolling over and drawing Fingon on top of him, his legs wrapped around his lover's waist, offering himself, as Fingon had offered himself before.

By now Fingon was hardly able to think coherently anymore. He vaguely wondered where Maedhros's reasoning went astray, only realising that somehow, it did. What about light that kindled such lusts as Fëanor's Silmarils did? If fire held both the beast and the beauty, was it not wise to fear its force even when it seemed benevolent?

But he was a warrior, not a sage, and all he knew for certain was that the love he received was as true as the love he gave.

Nothing will come between us, was his last conscious thought before their blazes merged. Neither my father's words, nor your father's dark flame. Nothing.

 

Not even a dragon.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

TBC (unfortunately for the main characters)

* Quenya for 'my father'

** The cursive text is a direct quote from Unfinished Tales, p. 75

Chapter 4: Licking Wounds

Disclaimer: I'd never take myself for an original author.

Apologising to Tolkien and glancing sideways at Lord Byron (who'll spot the allusion?)

Read Chapter 4: Licking Wounds

 

Chapter Four: Licking Wounds

Fingolfin was dead.

He had challenged Morgoth himself. No one else would have had the courage, or the power to wound this foe. Or should it be called folly and rashness? Had the challenger been Fëanor, the answer would have been easy, for despite his verbal prowess the Spirit of Fire had never been able to discern between a fiery heart and a hot head. Not so the elder of his half-brothers; if not the wisest, Fingolfin had certainly been the shrewdest of Finwë's sons, with a thought behind every word and deed.

How shrewd was it to fight Morgoth in single combat? Did my father truly believe he had a chance to win?, Fingolfin's son wondered, staring at the crown that sat before him on the table top, while he tried to grasp the enormity of Fingolfin's fall. Would I do the same? What could induce me to do such a thing? In the twilight of his chamber in the Citadel of Hithlum - a place no longer as safe as it used to be - these questions seemed to grow and thicken with the shadows.

The long summer of peace had abruptly been turned into a winter of destruction and ruin: the fertile plain of Ard-galen scorched, the siege of Angband broken, two of Finarfin's brave sons fallen, the faithful Hador of Dor-lómin slaughtered, the sons of Fëanor scattered, and the lands of East Beleriand lost - save the great fortress of Himring, thanks to the fierce resistance Maedhros put up. And the dragon was back, Glaurung the Urulókë, come into his full might, as Fingon had known he would: for had he not seen him grow in his darkest dreams, inch by inch, foot by foot, ever since he first beheld the golden-eyed beast, now four hundred years ago?

The dragon had turned east against Fëanor's sons, and even now Fingon still feared he would be Maedhros's bane, for this monster would wreak havoc wherever it went. But never had he dreamed that his father would die. Without warning, the High King had galloped to his end under Morgoth's feet. Now, his son tried to convince himself that it had been a courageous gamble, not an act of despair. For he who invites his own death will long be hosted by Mandos.

What had the King left behind? A people bereaved, a realm diminished, a grieving heir without an heir. What had the son inherited from his father? The burden of kingship - Fingon lifted the adorned helm and put it on his head - a revenge grown huge as Glaurung, the feeling of falling short.

And too much remained unsaid. His personal dragon had been a thorn in his father's side, impossible to remove - but why had he never acknowledged that it might hurt?

Fingon jumped when someone knocked at the door. Quickly, he removed the crown, as if putting it on had been an act of impropriety.

A slender figure entered. It was the maiden Coiriel, she with the red locks. When the plain of Ard-galen was laid waste in the Dagor Bragollach during the onslaught of Glaurung and his Balrogs, she had been among the few survivors. Having lost her entire family to the fire, she had sought refuge at the High King's court in Hithlum.

'My lord King,' she said to Fingon, 'you are sitting in the gloom. Do you wish me to light a lamp for you?'

And where will you find the lamp that is bright enough? Inwardly, Fingon sighed. He should have avoided staring at her hair, just because it reminded him of Maedhros's copper. Misjudging his motives, Coiriel had begun to seek his company, her face shining expectantly as soon as she saw him. It saddened him. After so much suffering she deserved to find love, yet he could not offer her a glimmer of hope.

'Thank you, lady Coiriel, but the failing light fits my mood,' he said, trying to sound discouraging. 'I know where the door is, even in the dark.'

'No doubt, my lord,' she said, smiling. 'And I think you shall want to use it soon. A company of riders approaches the citadel; they were sighted from the watchtower a short while ago. It is thought they will reach the gates when the stars have come out.'

Good; he had been alone with his thoughts long enough. 'I will prepare to receive them.' Now get out of here, girl.

Coiriel nodded, and after a short hesitation vanished from the room.

Fingon thought of the dragon at large, destroying everything in its path. He hoped the riders would bring good news from the east. Once more he touched the crown, convinced that it would be easier to wear once he knew Maedhros was alive and well.

It was, in fact, Maedhros whom the watchers had seen. He was alive and well, and he came to express his sorrow at the death of the High King and pay homage to the new one. Maglor had come, too; a ploy, perhaps, to divert attention from the fact that the homage was as needless as it was unasked for.

Turgon and Finrod, ensconced in their hidden kingdoms, had merely sent messages, and most of Fëanor's other sons did not even bother to do as much. But Fingon was happy enough that his lover had come, whether his deference was a pretext or not.

It most definitely was, for it was feigned. Maedhros insisted on kneeling before his King, his posture exceedingly formal. But his expression was sardonical, causing Fingon's happiness to fray a little at the edges. Maglor, going through the motions, looked troubled.

Wait for me tonight in the room assigned to you, Fingon spoke into Maedhros's mind when the two brothers rose.

The answer came as a surprise. I would rather wait for you in the armoury. It has been too long since we last crossed blades.

The King complied, remembering only too well what sparks a sparring match could strike out of them.

When he entered the armoury later that night, his formal robes exchanged for a simple tunic, his hair pulled back and bound with a cord, Maedhros was already there, sword in hand. His own blade, not a blunted practice sword.

'If you plan to fight me to the death,' Fingon remarked airily, 'I strongly advise you to don a mail shirt.' Briefly, he considered claiming a kiss before the clash but decided against it; why not play at being serious for a change? Instead, he proceeded to choose a blade, for he saw no reason to return to his room to find his own sword.

'I can do without a mail shirt,' he heard Maedhros say to his back, 'but I won't keep you from wearing one if it suits you.'

Fingon wheeled. The mockery that should have been there was absent from his lover's voice, who had to be in a truly foul mood to speak in such a manner. To his dismay, careful probing told him that Maedhros had shut his mind against him. He felt his anger rise. 'Do you know what suits me?' he retorted, and without waiting for the answer he unclasped his belt and peeled off his tunic and shirt. After some hesitation he also removed Maedhros's gift, the green stone crafted by Feanor*, lest it be damaged. Hoping the gesture would not be misinterpretated he turned around to face Maedhros bare-chested. 'This allows more freedom of movement, would you not say so as well?'

The eyes on the other side of the room narrowed perceptibly.

Again, Fingon turned towards the rows of swords on the wall and inspected them at leisure; Maedhros needed time to strip, and under the circumstances he would probably refuse help. Finally, the High King found a blade to his liking, but he did not turn back until his sharp ears caught the faint rustle of silk on the floor and he knew Maedhros had divested himself of his shirt.

His gaze alighted on his lover's chest, and from there roamed upward to his throat, his chin, his mouth, his eyes - where it was caught and held. And suddenly, Fingon wanted nothing so much as throw his sword aside and embrace him to dispel the clouds he saw in those eyes - except that he could not. By now he knew that this was much more than a game, and only one step short of madness.

'Ready?' he asked, not wholly without apprehension. Left-handed swordsmen were never easy to combat, and this one had the experience of both hands, the one he used presently and the one he remembered using in the past. In confrontations like this one it was, in fact, Maedhros who had two hands, while his opponent was the one-handed warrior.

'Ready,' came the reply.

Fingon attacked at once. He had a chance to hold his own, but only if he did not hold back.

Maedhros parried just in time; then the need to watch and anticipate, to hew and block, to advance and evade, overrode all thinking and fretting, while the clanging and screeching of metal assailed their ears and bounced back from the walls of the room.

At one point, Fingon barely avoided having his rib cage slashed open, while his own blade just failed to bite into his opponent's shoulder. They paused simultaneously. 'Is it the crown you want?' Fingon heard himself ask. If Maedhros thought it galling to be ruled by a much younger king...

'Why do you think I came to pay you homage? The House of Fëanor is dispossessed. The crown of Finwë is yours. Be worthy of it.' Taking a deep breath Maedhros went to the attack again.

A renewed exchange of blows followed. Maedhros came very close to drawing blood, whereas Fingon began to wish he had gone for his own sword. Another lull in the fighting; they were both panting and sweating now. 'If not the crown itself, is it the distance it creates between us? Fingon asked, wiping his moist palm against his thigh.

Maedhros did the same, resting his sword against his body for a moment. 'What is this, a sword fight or a riddle game?'

'Maitimo, I would prefer answers to parries. And instead of sword-strokes, would you not rather -'

Again, Maedhros went to the attack, fiercer than ever. By now, Fingon was unable to do more than defend himself. After a while, though, he noticed that his opponent was getting impatient, and a little careless. That was not like Maedhros at all; he had to be deeply troubled, so much was clear. But Fingon knew that if he pressed his advantage, he would inevitably wound him. Perhaps badly. He hesitated.

It was not something he could afford even against a careless Maedhros. The blade broke the skin on his chest before he was aware of it. Gazing down he saw his own blood well slowly from a cut across the very spot where the green stone used to rest. The next moment, he heard a sword clatter to the tiles. He let go of his own weapon and sank to his knees.

A strangled noise. Suddenly Maedhros was kneeling in front of him. 'I have wounded you,' he said, aghast.

'A scratch, no more,' Fingon muttered. Right now, it did not even hurt, though he knew it would when the blood stopped flowing. 'I am well. Only a little tired.'

'Lie down.'

'It is nothing.'

'Lie down.'

The King complied, allowing himself to be lowered to the floor, a tunic between his bare back and the cold tiles. 'You win,' he said, thinking now that this must be what Maedhros had been after: the certainty that at least in one respect he was still in the lead.

And was he? 'You win,' Fingon repeated after a silence.

'I wish I could believe you...' The next moment, Maedhros bent forward and began to clean the wound with his tongue, licking away the blood, like an animal would do with an injured cub. An excellent way of stanching, and of stimulating the healing process.

It also had a side effect. A slow pleasure, punctured by the faint throbbing of the cut on his chest, spread throughout Fingon's body. A strand of hair tickled his collar-bone and he felt the stump of Maedhros's right arm rest lightly on his stomach. 'I like this,' he said.

After a few errant heartbeats, Maedhros raised his head. To Fingon's immense relief he smiled, albeit wanly, and the gates of his mind flew open. And I like doing it. He resumed his ministrations, extending his loving care to places his blade had never touched.

'Do you not wish I had wounded you?' Fingon murmured suggestively.

You could have. You should have. I was mad.

Mad... bad... and dangerous to love. It was difficult to concentrate on mind-speech, Fingon discovered.

His beloved withdrew his tongue. 'Regrets?'

'No...' Fingon briefly considered talking it out but decided to let it rest. He thought of Glaurung; they had not spoken of him yet. 'Have you seen the dragon?'

'Which one?' Maedhros stroked the place where Fingon's private monster was straining against its confinements.

'Both. But I will not ask which beast you think more impressive.'

'The answer might surprise you,' Maedhros said meaningfully.

Fingon snorted, groping for his lover's dragon. 'Let me feel! Move closer, and I will set it free.' He refrained from bringing up Glaurung once more. He dismissed the thought that Maedhros harboured yet another dragon, one he could not grasp quite so easily. He also dismissed the idea that Fingolfin's persistent and vehement opposition to their bond could have something to do with it. 'Come. Make love to me.'

'Perhaps not here?'

'I bolted the door after I went in.'

Fingon had barely mentioned the door when someone rapped on it. He sat up too abruptly, and groaned.

'Careful,' Maedhros warned. 'Or it will bleed again.' He raised his voice. 'Who is there?'

'I am.' The voice rang out loudly, even from behind the thick wood.

'One moment, Maglor,' his brother said.

Of course, it took them much more than a moment to dress and wipe the blood from Maedhros's sword, and by the time they were finished Fingon's wound was indeed bleeding again. Fortunately his tunic was dark blue and unadorned, so the damp spot would not easily be detected.

When he opened the armoury door, two people stood waiting outside: Maglor - and the maiden Coiriel.

'I wanted a word with you,' Maglor said to Fingon. 'This lovely lady told me you were in the armoury. But why bolt the door?'

Fingon suppressed a sigh. What was he to do with this persistent female? 'We went in for a sparring match,' he explained. 'And we decided that no one was to find out who bested whom.' He gave Coiriel a courteous nod: 'Good night, my lady, and thank you for showing lord Maglor the way.'

She smiled, not at all abashed by his lack of warmth. 'A good night to you, my lord King.'

Meanwhile, Maglor eyed them strangely. 'You had an argument,' he said when Coiriel had left.

'We had, but the matter has been resolved,' Fingon told him. 'What was it you wanted to speak about?'

Maglor looked from him to Maedhros and back again. 'Does it ever happen to you that you believe you have something urgent to say - and then you have a flash of insight, and you know it will make no difference whatsoever?'

'It does,' Fingon replied gravely. 'So there is nothing to discuss?' He realised he was speaking to himself as well as to Maglor.

'Nothing.' Casting them a last, helpless glance, Maedhros's brother turned on his heels and went his way.

'What do you think he wanted to say?' Fingon asked when he thought Maglor was out of earshot.

Maedhros shrugged. 'Who can tell what is on another man's mind?'

Fingon shook his head. 'Not good: you are his brother.'

Maedhros pulled him closer. 'Maybe he wanted to speak of the fire-dragon?'

'Has he seen it?'

'He has.'

'What does he think of it?' Fingon asked after a silence. 'How much does he hate it?'

'Hardly at all. Maglor is good at singing his hate away. But...'

'But what?'

'I think he prefers to avoid it.'

Fingon winced a little when Maedhros pressed him against his chest to kiss him. But that was just his wound, of course.

The wound that was love.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*According to Christopher Tolkien, this is the Elessar as it was first conceived by his father. It's mentioned in the HoMe, Vol. 11, The War of the Jewels, pp. 176-7, in two pencilled notes: 'He [Fëanor] gives the green stone to Maidros', and 'The Green Stone of Fëanor given by Maidros to Fingon'. CT's commentary: 'My father was at this time pondering the previous history of the Elessar, which had emerged in The Lord of the Rings; for his later ideas on its origin see Unfinished Tales, pp. 248-52.

Chapter 5: A Glimmer of Hope

I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed one or more (or all!) stories in this series; your feedback is greatly appreciated! … Here, the POV is still Fingon's; in the next one it will- inevitably - shift to Maedhros. I dread the moment I'll have to deal with the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, but on the other hand, I'm definitely losing my grip on Fingon; he's becoming fey.

Warning: In an author bio I read that Fingon/Maedhros slash is icky, written by sick people. That's why I had to insert the R-scene into this story, even if it's perhaps not entirely functional. On the other side, it may well be the main characters' last moment of pleasure, so...

Read Chapter 5: A Glimmer of Hope

 

Chapter Five: A Glimmer of Hope

There had been a time, when all they used to hunt in East Beleriand was game. But since the Dagor Bragollach most of the game was killed and devoured by Morgoth's orcs. So now they hunted orcs instead, in an attempt to clean at least some of the lands from the foul creatures, and to save what could still be saved from defilement and destruction. As always, Maedhros was the most relentless in his pursuit and the fiercest in his wrath, and the orcs that fled for his white-hot fury ran right onto the spears of Fingon and Maglor.

On the third day of the hunt they stopped counting the slain before they put the corpses to the torch, and in grim satisfaction the party returned to the fortress on the Hill of Himring. There, a surprise awaited them. Shortly before their return from the orc-chase, two guests had appeared at the gates, unexpected yet not unwelcome, for they were Celegorm and Curufin, sons of Fëanor.

Maedhros and Maglor were glad to see their brothers, and Fingon was not too adverse to their company. Though at least Curufin was partly responsible for the burning of the ships at Losgar and the ensuing losses on the Grinding Ice, he deemed this a matter of the past not to be dwelled on. Discord was something the Eldar could ill afford; now that the Enemy had proved so strong, all had to hold together. If it had not been for the timely help of Círdan and his Falathrim, Fingon himself would have perished when Morgoth attacked Hithlum, three years of the Sun ago.

Yet there was something strange about the arrival of the two brothers. They had been riding a single horse, Curufin had a strip of cloth wound around his neck that he did not even remove it in the fire-warmed hall, and Celegorm had not brought his great hound Huan - until now his faithful companion. A pity, for Huan was always most eager in his pursuit of orcs and other creatures of the dark.

He resolved to ask about it during the evening meal that awaited them on their return, but the first question came from Maglor. 'Was Nargothrond no longer to your liking?' he said to his younger brothers. 'Or did Finrod decide you drank enough of his wine?'

Celegorm and Curufin exchanged a look.

'Well?' said Maedhros, when they failed to answer.

'Our cousin Finrod,' Celegorm replied flatly, 'is dead.'

Fingon's wine cup jerked, spilling part of its content.

'I hope,' Maedhros said after a silence, 'that you do not expect us to laugh at such a bad jest.' Celegorm was not renowned for his sense of humour.

'He is not jesting.' Curufin shrugged. 'Finrod was mauled by a werewolf of Gorthaur in his own dungeon on Eithel Sirion. To our cousin's credit, I must add that he requited himself well, for in his turn he bit the wolf's throat.'

Finrod, the most cheerful, open-minded and generous of Finwë's grandsons - dead, killed in the fortress he had built himself? Fingon stared at Curufin, who had the evil courage to look smug. Perhaps I should send you to Morgoth as a suitable gift.

'How did this happen?' Maedhros asked gruffly.

Curufin cleared his throat. 'He proposed to rob a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown to help some base mortal called Beren, who needed it to buy Lúthien daughter of Thingol. So we reminded the people of Nargothrond of our Oath.' He cast a glance at Maedhros and Maglor who both looked deeply troubled. 'They were wise enough to refuse Finrod. He was insane enough to go anyway, only accompanied by the mortal and ten of his warriors.' He coughed, and took a swig of wine. 'Do you mind telling the rest, Celegorm?'

Celegorm shifted in his chair. 'What more is there to tell? Finrod got himself killed. When he heard this, his bland little nephew Orodreth claimed his crown and told us we had better leave. So here we are.'

'And who tried to throttle you?' Fingon asked, pointing at the cloth around Curufin's neck. He was hard put to suppress his rage. 'Surely not Orodreth. He does not have the makings of a Kinslayer!'

Celegorm jumped up. 'You, of all people, have the cheek to use the word Kinslayer against us?' he shouted. 'Your hands are as red as ours!'

Maedhros left hand descended on the table. 'Restrain yourself! And answer the High King's question.'

'Ha! Why not just let the usurper's son rant?' Curufin coughed again.

'Curufin!' growled his eldest brother.

Fingon rose. They could insult him, but not Fingolfin. 'Maedhros,' he said, his voice taut, 'I will not draw a blade in the house of a host, but neither do I wish to sleep under the same roof with... that.' He turned and strode to the door.

Behind him, all four brothers raised their voices simultaneously. A chair crashed to the floor. Though he had the impression that at least one of Fëanor's sons was calling him back, Fingon held himself deaf and left.

Outside it was almost dark, and the first stars were coming out. Fingon realised that his threat to leave Himring was empty; it would be sheer folly to travel by night through a country infested with orcs and other foul creatures. The best he could do was to avoid Celegorm and Curufin until he could depart at first light tomorrow. But if he stayed close to the fortress, he could at least take a walk to sort out his thoughts and feelings.

He loosened his sword in its scabbard before he began to descend the hill, down a path that Maedhros and he used to take in happier days. Before the Bragollach. His jaws clenched. They were going one by one: his youngest brother Argon, his sister Aredhel, Angrod, Aegnor, his father, and now Finrod - who would be next?

Not Maedhros. Let it not be Maedhros.

The thought alone was unbearable, so he thought of Finrod instead, keeping his dread at bay with his grief. His cousin's face appeared before his mind's eye, but not as he had last seen him, during a war council in Hithlum. It was a young boy he saw, hanging upside down from a tree in their grandfather's garden in Tirion, on a festival day.

'Well met, Finrod,' he remembered saying, gazing up at the golden head between the green leaves. 'Your great friend Turgon is here, too. Will you not come down?'

Finrod had blinked, his eyes slightly glazed. 'Not yet. I want to sleep.'

'Only bats sleep upside down,' Fingon had replied. 'Quendi can sleep in trees, but they do not do it hanging with their heads down.'

'Then I am a bat. I really slept. I dreamed I was flying in the twilight of the trees. Why did you wake me up?'

And suddenly, Fingon found himself wondering if the boy had not actually been asleep when he spoke to him. 'To prevent you from falling down and dying,' he recalled answering breezily.

'Quendi do not die.'

'Míriel did.'

'She stopped breathing. I will not.'

That was Finrod. This time, he had imitated a werewolf rather than a bat, and he had died. Angrily, Fingon shook his head. Make your grief a weapon to turn against the Enemy, instead of abandoning yourself to irrelevant memories and silly thoughts, he told himself. It did nothing to alleviate the pain. I am going mad.

I was afraid so.

Fingon wheeled, whipping out his blade before it occurred to him that it could only be Maedhros; no one else could have read his unguarded mind. If he had been less preoccupied he would have heard him approach. Mad indeed; what if Maedhros had been an enemy?

'It is unsafe to roam alone at night, with a price on your head.' Maedhros' eyes glittered in the dark.

'Yes, Morgoth has made my head rather precious.' Fingon put away his sword.

'To me, it always was. Morgoth will never value it highly enough.' Stepping closer, Maedhros laid his hand against Fingon's cheek.

Fingon laid his on Maedhros chest. For a while they stood motionless, each feeling the breath of Arda and the other's breath on his skin, until finally they closed the remaining distance and brought their lips together.

They kissed but briefly, so as to avoid temptation in the no longer peaceful hills. Around them, the leaves were whispering sadly.

'I ordered them to sleep in the stables,' Maedhros said finally. 'I could hardly throw them out altogether, at night. They are still my brothers. But tomorrow, they shall leave. Do you think I grieve any less for Finrod than you do? There is no excuse for what they have done.'

No? Fingon thought, taking care to guard his mind now, so as not to hurt his beloved. What about the Oath you, too, have sworn? He preferred not to dwell on what Maedhros would have done in his brothers' stead. Gracious Lord of Eagles, would I forgive him if he had sent Finrod to his death? But he would never have done such a thing, would he?

'So you see,' Maedhros went on, 'you will not really be sleeping under the same roof.'

'Thank you, Maitimo. I really appreciate that.'

'Well, I had to find a way to lure you inside.' Maedhros smirked. 'Are you coming?'

Fingon laid an arm across his back. There was no escaping it. There was no way he would not be coming. If he had never thought of speaking a vow to bind himself to Maedhros it was not because such a thing would be unheard of among the Eldar, but because his love was the vow. He would not break it. Never would he turn from the path he was treading.

Maedhros copied his gesture, resting the stump of his maimed arm against Fingon's shoulder blade. Together they ascended the path towards the gates, not bothering to remove their arms when the guards let them in. After all, why should two close friends and cousins not support and comfort each other in times such as these, when tidings were mostly sorrowful?

'By the way,' Fingon asked when they entered the main building, 'did you find out who it was that tried to throttle Curufin?'

'I could not get it out of them,' Maedhros answered. 'It may be same person who took Curufin's horse and lured Celegorm's hound away.'

Such a person would be a valuable asset in the war against Morgoth, Fingon thought.

When Fingon slipped into the bedchamber and bolted the door, Maedhros was half undressed. Their last garments they shed simultaneously. They appraised each other for a moment before Fingon gripped his lover's shoulders, kissed him fiercely and marched him backward to the wall. 'You will need the support,' he said when Maedhros raised his eyebrows.

Dropping to his knees he slid his hands downward to rest on his lover's hips.

'The High King would kneel for me?' Maedhros asked, his eyes going dark with anticipation.

Still a little uncomfortable with it? 'Humour me, please, or my kingly knees may forget how to bend altogether.' Fingon grabbed Maedhros' left hand and the stump of his right arm - he never withdrew it nowadays - and bent forward.

After a while he felt nails dig into his palm, and his gaze wandered up across the well-shaped chest to the handsome face above him. The mouth was slightly open, tongue-tip wetting the lower lip. The eyes were unfocused, the lids trembled. In the soft candlelight he looked vulnerable, no longer the deadly warrior, but rather the reserved youth he had been in Valinor. Except that there, they had been no more than friends.

Suddenly, Maedhros threw his head aside, pressing his shoulders back against the wall. He gasped. 'Findekáno, if you go on like this, and walls do have ears, these will ring with my shouts soon.'

Fingon withdrew his mouth. 'And remember you until they crumble... The bed, then?'

'Any place where I can smother my cries!' Maedhros said.

In the end, he bit into his lover's shoulder, while Fingon muffled his groans of pleasure with Maedhros' hair. They remained as they were for a time, their bodies still joined. Neither of them felt the need to speak or move.

A loud knock on the door made them jerk apart. 'Maedhros!'

It was Maglor. They looked at each other. Shall we pretend that we are not here?

Perhaps he knows that we are.

But what, if he is not alone?

The next moment, they heard Maglor raise his voice in chant, and slowly the bolt began to slide away. Fingon was astonished: Fëanor's second son would never put his powers to such use, merely to satisfy his curiosity.

Lie down and do not move. Maedhros raised himself on his elbow. Reluctantly, Fingon hid behind his lover, pulling the sheet over his head.

Someone stepped inside. 'Excuse me, brother,' came Maglor's melodious voice. 'But this is important. You had better rise.'

Maedhros shifted uneasily.

Suddenly, Fingon decided not to play dead after all. Pushing the sheet away he sat up.

At the same time, the door closed rather noisily; Maglor must have kicked it shut as soon as he discerned the slightest movement behind his brother's back. So he had not come alone; there were others waiting outside.

'What is so important?' Fingon asked in a low voice.

Maglor was staring at the shoulder where Maedhros' teeth had left their mark. He swallowed.

'Celegorm and Curufin decided not to sleep in the stables,' he answered after a moment. 'They left the fortress and came upon two escaped thralls from Angband, whom they captured. The two claim they have something to tell us.'

'We will come down,' Maedhros said, while Fingon climbed from the bed and picked up his clothes. Thralls escaped from Angband? Tools of Morgoth more likely, without a will of their own, running the Enemy's errands.

'Go down and prepare the prisoners for interrogation,' Maglor cried to whoever it was outside the door. 'I shall wake the King.' Before he made to leave, he cast them a reproachful glance. 'You are getting careless.'

'Yes; perhaps we could just as well make the long-overdue marriage announcement,' Maedhros said mockingly. 'Then you could play at our wedding.'

Maglor fled the room, murmuring something incomprehensible, just before he closed the door. Fingon almost felt sorry for him.

Fingon was aghast. The two standing before his seat looked worse than thralls. Under their foul smelling rags that left most of their bodies exposed they were emaciated, their bare skin grey with dirt, and their bleeding feet marred by countless crusts and scabs. Their lank hair was grey, whether with dust or from the ordeals they had been put through was hard to tell, and their eyes still held the fear, pain and loathing that must have invaded them in the black pits of Morgoth. They hardly resembled Elves, and even mortals would be reluctant to recognize any kinship with these pitiful creatures.

This was, how orcs were being made, Fingon thought. A little more torment, a little more depravation, and they would be past caring when they were made to breed with females equally far gone. Every generation would slide a little further down, until... he shuddered and had to suppress the desire to throw them out and leave them to be swallowed by the night. That would be Orc-work.

Again, he looked them up and down. Their hands were tied behind their backs; a seemlingly wise precaution; a poisoned blade easily found its way to the flesh of the unsuspecting. Such things were known to have happened.

But tonight, he was sick of being cautious. 'Untie them,' he commanded.

Several of those present, among them Maedhros, objected, pointing out the risks. Not Celegorm and Curufin, though; they merely shrugged.

'Do as I say,' Fingon told the guards, his voice as cold as the Helcaraxë.

They obeyed. One of the two wretches blinked when his bonds were cut. His companion did not react at all.

'What are your names?' Fingon asked.

'I cannot recall,' one of them said in a voice devoid of emotion.

'Duilin,' the other - the one who had blinked - replied slowly. 'Of Ard-galen.' Ard-galen had been destroyed thirteen years ago. So thirteen years of thralldom sufficed to turn a warrior into a wreck.

'Give me your story.'

It was Duilin who told it; the other remained silent and scarcely even nodded.

The tale was astounding. They had managed to escape after a mortal man and a maiden had caused upheaval in Angband. And these two, the man and the maiden, had performed a feat no living soul would have thought possible. They had captured a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown.

'A curse on them,' Curufin said softly in the ensuing silence. 'They actually did it.'

'A curse on them?' Maedhros cried. 'No, praise them for dealing the Enemy such a blow and giving us a glimmer of hope again!'

'But who were they?' Fingon asked the two escaped thralls.

Regretfully, Duilin shook his head. 'We never heard their names, my lord.'

'But I think,' Maedhros said slowly, 'that some of us have. Celegorm? Curufin?'

Again, his younger brothers exchanged a look. 'All right,' Celegorm spat finally, with barely veiled fury. 'The mortal Beren, son of Barahir, and Lúthien, daughter of Thingol. But don't expect me to say more!'

The tumult that followed was remarkable, given the fact that the room contained only eleven people and that neither Fingon nor the two escaped Elves contributed to it. The silent one frowned, as if trying to remember something.

Fingon's feelings had seldom been more mixed. It was good to know that Morgoth was not unassailable. But if this Silmaril were to end up in Doriath, the sons of Fëanor would want to march on Thingol. And become Kinslayers once more.

Then, abruptly, Duilin's silent companion took a step towards him. Fingon jumped up, prepared to evade or ward off a blow. The guards, still digesting the news, were less attentive than they should have been. There was no need to be alarmed, however. The Elf dropped to his knees and said, his voice so low that Fingon had to strain his ears to catch the words: 'Kill me, my lord.' He tore the remaining rags from his sunken chest and spread his arms. 'Put me to the sword. End this wretched and worthless life.'

Fingon was dismayed. 'Why?'

'For bringing good news to the wrong place. King Thingol's name suddenly made me remember who I used to be. I was a grey Elf once, with kin and friends in Doriath. Now I have betrayed them all to the sons of Fëanor and their High King. I thought my will was not enslaved to Morgoth, but now I see I served him all the same. No doubt you will march on Doriath. Make your reputation true, Slayer of Elves, Lord of the Noldor. Kill me.' The agony in the grey Elf's voice was almost unbearable. He looked beyond healing. Perhaps death would indeed be a mercy to him.

If that is true, Fingon thought, I refuse to be merciful.

'I will do no such thing,' he said between clenched teeth, knowing he would never escape his past, regardless of where he ran, and no matter if he went forward or back. 'You are no traitor. We would have heard the tale anyway. But' - they were all listening now, and none more intently than Maedhros - 'but I swear to you by the memory of Fingolfin my sire, that the High King and his followers will not march on Doriath.'

So there was one way he would not come with Maedhros, after all. He turned towards his lover, capturing his gaze and holding it with all the power he could muster, for that was what it took. Now I have sworn an oath, too. What will you do?

He was not prepared for the sadness he saw in that gaze. 'Perhaps we should march on Angband, then,' Maedhros said.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

-The usurper: Maedhros relinquished the High Kingship of the Noldor to Fingolfin, but some of his brothers (very likely the three C's) did not agree with this; it would be just like them to suggest Fingolfin had no rightful claim.

- Argon: Fingolfin's youngest son is only mentioned in The Shibboleth of Fëanor, HoMe 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth. He fell in battle shortly after the arrival of the Noldor in Middle-earth.

- The person who nearly throttled Curufin: if you don't know or remember who this is, reread the story of Beren and Lúthien.

Chapter 6: The Cold and the Heat

Tolkien owns most of the characters, but Coiriel is mine.

Texts between ... ... are taken from the Curse of Mandos.

Read Chapter 6: The Cold and the Heat

 

Chapter 6: The Cold and the Heat

Fingon was working in the smithy of his Citadel. After all the planning, organising, poring over maps, discussing strategies and tactics, after all the hard-fought patience with the naggers, the over-cautious and the pedants, he wanted to be alone for a while. He also felt a strong urge to use the muscles of his arms and hands, instead of those of his tongue. To deal out some hard blows. And so, he was hammering away at the object on his anvil as if it was an enemy. In reality, it was but a blade.

They were going to the attack again. Eldar, Edain and Dwarves would press their advantage against Morgoth, now that the deed of Beren and Lúthien had proved him vulnerable. It was Maedhros who had forged the union. The plan had been his, and Fingon had been content to take his lover's lead after having averted the danger to Doriath. They were to march in a week.

The chain did not contain as many links as they would have liked. Doriath would stay aloof, which was no more than expected now that Thingol had a stolen Silmaril of his own to defend. The blank refusal of Nargothrond to join forces with the Noldor of the North had been predictable. If Curufin and Celegorm would fight - and they would, as Morgoth still possessed two of their father's three Silmarils - the new king of Nargothrond would not. Orodreth would forever hate these two for betraying his uncle Finrod, even if this ill will would condemn him to Mandos until the End of Arda, as his letter said with uncharacteristic vehemence. A great deal of ill will for such a gentle character as Orodreth had once been.

To the rhythm of his own chanting he hammered at the red-hot steel, strengthening it with his craft, shaping it to his will, pouring his hatred for the enemy into its soul. But at the moment, his younger brother occupied him more than the enemy did. There was no way to discover if Turgon would march, for no one knew where he dwelled. Turgon had never seen fit to inform even his closest kinsmen of his whereabouts. The hammer crashed down on the tip of the blade.

Maedhros believed Turgon would join their ranks. 'He knows enough, for he has the Eagles to tell him all that is going on. Was he not the first...' He had not finished his sentence: that Turgon had been the first to learn of Fingolfin's death. 'Surely your brother will not miss the opportunity to fight,' Maedhros had added a little lamely. Fingon wished that he could be sure. Without his brother's army, the balance would be precarious, at best.

Pausing for a moment, he looked at the door of the smithy. Knowing that the hot fires of the forge would make him sweaty and thirsty he had told the last smith who left after the day's work was done that he would require some refreshments at sundown. The last red rays of Anar had died now and dusk was creeping in through the window, but his order must have been lost somewhere on the way. Perhaps in the maze of a mind preoccupied with war.

With a sigh, Fingon gazed down at the blade on his anvil. Was it good enough to meet his own stern requirements? Were the virtues he was weaving into it strong enough? Would he entrust his own life to this weapon? But he would not be the one to use it; he already had a sword of his own making: Ringlach*, the mate of his father's sword Ringil that was lost. Nor was it a gift for Maedhros, whom he would not see prior to the battle. Then for whom was he sweating and beating this metal into submission?

Without knowing the answer he went back to work. Soon after, the door opened; if there was a knock, it was drowned by the noise with which he beat the fuller into the blade to strengthen it. Anticipating the by now much-needed drink, he smiled, but the smile faded when he saw who was carrying the tray.

It was Coiriel, the maiden with the coppery hair that reminded him of his lover's. Of course: she would always know where to find him, as if she used a spell to link her awareness to his presence.

Fingon gestured with his head towards the table near the window, not very courteous, but in his current state he felt at a disadvantage. The only garments he wore were his leggings and a leather apron; he would never willingly have shown himself to her like this.

Having set down the tray she poured a drink and brought it to him, appraising his bare shoulders, and forgetting or neglecting to appear shy. He laid down his hammer, accepted the cup and decided to expose a part of his soul as well. 'Forgive me if I am seeing things that are not there, my lady, but there will never be anything between us, either now or in the future. I cannot love you, for I am bound to another.' He took a slight step backward, but that wasn't necessary, as she made no move to touch him.

She declined to use the escape he offered her by saying he mistook her. Gazing into his eyes Coiriel replied, sadly, yet evenly: 'I can see that you are, my lord, and I believe I know who the other is.' There was no condemnation in her voice. 'But do not expect me to ignore my own feelings.'

He drank deeply, partly to hide an embarrassment bordering on shame. 'If that is all you ask of me...'

'I have one other request.'

He blinked. 'Which is?'

Coiriel hesitated for a moment; then she said: 'Allow me to fight for you in the coming battle, Aranya.'**

This was so unexpected that Fingon did not immediately know what to say. She looked terribly lonely in that moment, as lonely as he had felt on the Ice when he thought Maedhros had betrayed him.

'I can wield a sword, my lord,' she added. 'How did you think I survived the attack on Dorthonion?'

That was no explanation, for many of the best and bravest were slain there, but he decided not to dwell on it. She would not be the only warrior maiden in his army; he could not possibly deny her request. But he realised he did not want to either. A thought struck him, and indicating the almost finished sword he said: 'Will you accept this blade from me? I cannot lay it in your hands, for the metal is still hot, and it lacks a hilt, but if you wish it is yours.'

'My lord, I am greatly honoured,' she said, a look of pleasant surprise on her face. 'But... should I not be the one to offer a sword?'

'Consider it done,' Fingon replied.

Coiriel dropped to one knee to swear herself to the service of her King, with an eagerness that humbled him deeply. His hand on her flaming head, he uttered the blessing that went with the acceptance of service offered.

When Coiriel had left, Fingon put the finishing touch to the blade, deciding to add the hilt tomorrow. He cleared away his tools, removed his apron and sat down against the wall to let the lingering heat of the stones seep into his back. He touched the green stone on his chest, Maedhros' present, and allowed his mind to roam the paths of memories and dreams.

His memory took short cuts and did not always walk the straight road of Time. His dream recalled the Square of Tirion in the firelight, when Fëanor and his sons swore the terrible Oath. The face of his father, aghast, his fury dawning - and the same face, the same expression, but now in Beleriand, after the Mereth Aderthad, when Fingolfin discovered that his eldest son and Fëanor's were lovers. He saw Maedhros and himself, gifted with unsuspecting joy in Valinor, and stealing pleasure among the hazards of Middle-earth. Glaurung, young and foolish and still daunted by elvish arrows, and Glaurung, grown older and wiser in the ways of malice and destruction, leading the fires of the Dagor Bragollach - that receded into the flames of Losgar. He dreamed of the fair semblance of Morgoth when he was still named Melkor. Of the rare sight of the Silmarils, alive with the blended light of the Trees, reflecting a riot of colours yet shining with the frosted clarity of Varda's stars. His vision showed him crossing the Helcaraxë with a heart as numbed by betrayal as his feet were deadened by the cold.

He saw the dark vastness of Thangorodrim, the aim and purpose of the coming attack

There, the dream slowed.

He had been climbing for several days, a tortuous ascent that would have exhausted him if he would have had less to climb for. The mountains were cold, bleak and grim, with steep walls, deep precipices and narrow clefts maligned with night, under a sky perpetually clouded by the dark fumes of Angband. Though he saw no eyes, the air felt hostile, and he knew he was in danger. Yet he kept going on. There was little room for growth of any kind; every living thing he encountered was stunted or deformed in some way; the very stones seemed to be writhing and under the weight of evil, their silent wails gnawing at his resolve and sapping his strength. The shadows playing tricks on him were the ghosts of his own excruciating doubts: why are you doing this? What do you expect to find? Go back. Friendship and love are death, vanquished by malice and treachery.

...treason of kin unto kin and the fear of treason...

But all he wanted was to fathom the unfathomable.

Folly, of course: treason was treason. He was headed for sheer disappointment.

Wrong again. He was doing the one right thing. He was going to heal the breach.

His path ended at the edge of a steep abyss. He would have to retrace his steps and try a different approach. The sun was hiding her face behind unmoved, unmoving clouds. Yet the perpetual twilight had an advantage: it made him as difficult to see as all else.

For some time now he had been murmuring to himself, just to hear a familiar sound, one he could trust, though even this was a matter of doubt: his voice could betray him to the orcs and other foes whose presence he sensed all about him. But he did no longer care, so he took out his harp and began to sing in defiance. An old song from blissful times before evil rumours and the falling out of brothers.

In his dream-memory, the scene shifted. He stood in the place where the echo of his singing had led him. Another chasm he could not cross gaped ahead of him. On the other side loomed a rock face, high and sheer, and, below the rim was a pale shape, far out of reach. It moved, twisting and trashing. His song was being sung back at him by the one who hung there; it was this sound he had heard, and trusted like his own voice.

Maedhros. Kinsman, betrayer, companion, enemy, friend. Doubted, hated, beloved. Suspended by his wrist, naked, exposed to rain, hail and snow and the fell winds of the North, in an agony of torment. Far down, on the other side of the breach, Fingon gazed up in cold horror. His music died.

... beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death's shadow...

He felt, rather than heard Maedhros beg him to make an end to it.

Yes, part of him thought. That is what he deserves.

What he deserves for his terrible suffering.

He had a bow. He drew it and shot up a pitiful arrow of prayer. The piercing cry of an Elf who has killed other Elves before. It seemed easy: the first kill is the hardest, the next one less so. And he had lost count long since, in Alqualondë, an age away, in the sorrow before the Ice.

The arrow went wide; was his aim wrong? His purpose? His heart?

The prayer homed. Manwë's eagle came and bore him up.

'Slay me,' Maedhros repeated with parched lips. 'I beg you.'

The vice shackling him to the rock refused to give way. 'Why?' asked Fingon, giving up his attempts.

'Everyone will be better off if I die.'

Fingon touched his shoulder. The skin was cold, yet it was Maedhros who shivered at the touch. He drew his blade. Behind the haze of pain in Maedhros' eyes he read relief.

... tears innumerable ye shall shed...

It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, though not the most horrible. But he was doomed to draw blood now. Weeping, he lifted the weapon to bring it down on the wrist caught in the unyielding bond. It crossed his mind that henceforth, he would never be able to stain this blade with orc blood. He would have to forge a new sword.

The scene changed again. Maedhros lay on a bed in one of the makeshift huts of the Noldorin encampment, the tightly bandaged stump of his arm hidden under his blankets. He had rested long, though fitfully at times, writhing in the bed. Now, he began to wake up. Fingon, sitting on the floor beside him, waited for his eyes to focus. When they finally did, they burned into his, past agony turning into conscious memory.

'So it was real,' Maedhros murmured. 'Not a nightmare.' His eyes sought those of his rescuer. 'You risked your life for me.'

Fingon swallowed. 'I... forgive me that I could not save your hand.'

'My hand? Payment. Only a fool believes he can be more devious than the Dark Lord and throws away the lives of his followers,' Maedhros said with bitter mockery. But the howl of misery underneath his words reverberated so loudly through Fingon's mind that he found himself wondering why nobody else in the camp heard it, and came running.

... not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains...

He cringed. Maedhros had lost the one ability he believed in: how could he fight the Enemy without his sword hand? And the one who had done this to him was supposed to be his best friend.

'Why did you save the remains of me, instead of killing me?' Maedhros asked hoarsely.

He deserved an honest answer, difficult as it was not to mitigate the truth. 'I felt I was unfit to condemn you - or grant you mercy.' The mercy of true release. Laughing grimly he added: 'Nor did I risk my life to come back empty-handed.'

'But can you forgive me?'

The laugh became a smile. 'Maglor told me everything that happened at Losgar. That you thought of me first. It is I who should apologise to you for doubting you even for a moment, thinking you capable of -'

'Not so. I never stood up against my father. Did you curse me, when you crossed the Ice?' Maedhros shuddered.

Fingon shook his head. 'No.' Not I. 'Are you still cold?' He bent forward. 'Does it feel as if you will never be warm again?'

'How do you...' began Maedhros. He fell silent.

'There is a remedy,' Fingon said. 'The heat of another body against yours.'

Why it went as it went was something they never spoke about afterwards. Though none of those who crossed the Ice would ever undress in that freezing hell when sharing their body heat, it seemed a natural thing that Fingon should remove his clothes: under the covers, Maedhros' body was naked, and Fingon's skin was warmer than his garments, for it was alive. And when he lay down it seemed just as natural that he should pull Maedhros against him, and start to rub him. They had been naked together before, in Valinor, swimming or bathing in a stream. Naked, and perfectly innocent.

Afterwards, neither of them could have said when Fingon's rubbing became caressing, at what moment the caresses grew to be more than merely soothing and comforting, and at what moment Maedhros' remaining hand began to return them. What stood out among the memories of those moments was the kiss. It was not until their lips touched and opened, their tongues met and entwined and the smoldering heat flared into fire, that they woke up to the awareness of what they were doing - and questioned the workings of nature.

'Can this be right?' Fingon asked softly, his voice strangely small. Fingon, who had not hesitated to inflict pain and death in Alqualondë - wondering whether it was right to give pleasure.

The worst thing was, that Maedhros did not know if the answer he yearned to give was correct. So he turned it into a question that sounded, perhaps, a little more defiant than he felt: 'How can it be wrong to love!'

'Then,' said Fingon the Valiant, never afraid to shoulder responsibility, to move on, to take a risk, 'that is what we shall do, my love.' And so, a glowing tie of flesh to bind them both replaced the cold bond of metal from which Maedhros had so recently been freed. A tie that held, despite the strains of distance, duty and the Doom of the Noldor.

But it was not perfect - and how could it be, in Arda Marred? However much they shared, bright memories and dark ones, one thing could never be shared. They were both guilty of the Kinslaying, and they carried that guilt wherever they went, but the difference was that Fingon could be contrite, whereas he could not. You cannot rue a crime you will commit again, should the occasion arise. The Oath of Fëanor marred their love. Not because Fingon had ever condemned him for swearing it, but simply because he had not sworn it himself and could not sense its corrupting power in his very soul. If there was a dragon lurking inside their love, its heat was not that of bodily perversion. It was the chilling glare of damnation that burned in its malice. A spirit of fire turned to ice.

Now, in his fortress on the cold hill of Himring, in the lull before the great storm, remembering their first, careful lovemaking, Maedhros was still not sure what the answer to his own question really was. Could it be wrong to love, if you were held by power you knew to be stronger? He pulled a thin golden chain from underneath his shirt. On it hung the Elennar, the mate of Fingon's green stone, wrought by Fëanor in Tirion. Taking the red jewel in his hand, he thought of everything that had befallen since the Noldor began to walk their twisted path towards the present day.

I love you, Fingon, he thought. Reaching westward with his mind, across the terrors of the Ered Gorgoroth, across the green grave of Finrod who had died in the quest for a Silmaril, he knew with certainty that his lover was wrapped in the same memories

Let them serve to remind us what we fight for.

Yet the jewel remained strangely cold. Not even his hand seemed to be able to warm it.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*Cold Flame. It seemed appropriate to me if a Noldorin King would forge his own sword.

**My King

This story contains my version of the Thangorodrim episode - The Silmarillion, Chapter 13. Read the others, by Taelle, Deborah, Ithilwen, Le Chat Noir, Staggering Wood-elf, Artanis and Sorne. Some of them definitely influenced me. If I missed anyone, tell me!

The Cold Hill of Himring is the title of a Maedhros story by Ithilwen. Strongly recommended.

The Elennar belongs to Círdan (the author), who graciously allowed me to borrow it. Read the series Paradise Lost to find out more!

Chapter 7: False Dawn

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Part 1

Read Chapter 7: False Dawn

 

Chapter Seven: False Dawn

Doubt is an ugly thing for an army commander facing battle. Could they march, Maedhros wanted to know.

No, Uldor said. According to his scouts, orcs were heading southeast, ready to surge in through the Gap of Maglor and ravage the lands beyond. Where wives and children remained behind, unprotected and vulnerable. Those of the Eldar. Those of Bor's people. And of course, Uldor's own. If the Eastern army were to march now, what would stand between the orcs and their prey?

'Should we not send some troops? A small force?' Maglor wondered, after Uldor had left.

'We cannot miss even one warrior,' Maedhros replied grimly, trying to suppress the bloody images flooding his mind.

'No,' his younger brother said pensively. 'For that is not what we fight for, is it? To protect innocents from being eaten by these foul beasts, to keep the springs clean, the grass green and the woods untouched by evil. We have greater things to achieve.'

What ails you, brother? 'We have!' Maedhros growled. 'Such as overthrowing the Dark Lord. If we do that, all else will be achieved much more easily.'

Maglor's thought was plain to read: Such as regaining the Silmarils.

A good thing he did not say it aloud. 'We will wait a little longer yet,' Maedhros went on. 'Undoubtedly the orcs will swerve west when they see our numbers, and get caught between Fingon's host and ours.' He felt weary, a weariness not of the body but of the soul. One that he should not feel. One that could not be wished away, as it was the shadow of a Power that brought it about. And not necessarily Morgoth's.

His brother nodded, and left to rejoin his own troops.

Elven sight is not always an asset. A King of the Eldar who waits in the shadow of the Ered Wethrin and looks desperately for some dust rising in the East but sees it not, may lose heart sooner than a mortal whose short-sightedness leaves him time to cling to hope. Though one of those mortals, standing beside Fingon, would rather face grim reality. 'Nothing yet?' asked Húrin Thalion of Dor-lómin, peering needlessly and uselessly.

The High King shook his head, reaching out with his mind now, with no more result.

'But my mortal eyes perceive something else!' another voice cried suddenly. Húrin's younger brother, Huor, not far away. 'Look to the South!'

Slowly, Fingon turned his head, the cries and cheers rolling over him, waves crested by the clear notes of a trumpet. Never until now had he admitted to himself he had already given up on Turgon, and he laughed in shameless relief to see a sea of warriors and a forest of spears ablaze with the Midsummer sun emerge from the southern mountains. And on top of his lungs he sang that the day had dawned, and was answered by a ringing choir of voices exulting in the passing of the night.

Morgoth could come.

And come he did, and only too soon - yet not soon enough for the hotheaded, hot-hearted Noldor. Many of the Elvish warriors could hardly wait to rush to the attack once their foes, far advanced on the dusty plain of Anfauglith, came into full view. A large host it was, yet not beyond their capacity to vanquish, it seemed.

'Let us wipe this filth from the fair face of Arda!' Fingon heard one warrior shout loudly, followed by other, similar cries.

'Not yet, I deem,' said Húrin, a cautious man if ever there was one.

Fingon knew he was right. He could feel the familiar urge, as most of the Eldar did on encountering Morgoth's orcs. A desire to kill and destroy, a hatred beyond any reasonable thought, born from loathing and fury at this mockery of themselves, these hideously distorted images of Elves marred beyond repair in the deep, dark past beneath the stars.* Mortals would never feel it as keenly. They hated the orcs merely for what they did, and not also for what they were.

But vast as this army appeared, undoubtedly it was but part of what Morgoth could bring into the field. Let the orcs exhaust themselves for a while assailing the stronghold of the hills.

'We wait,' Fingon declared, and his messengers left to relay his command to the captains further down the lines. Once more, he looked East.

Still nothing.

'We march,' Maedhros announced grimly. Ulfast - this time Uldor had sent his son to convey the warning message - could talk all he wanted, but delaying any longer was courting disaster. They were five days late already, and none knew the limits of Fingon's patience like he did.

'But, my lord...' The young Easterling's eyes boldly met his, something Uldor had always wisely avoided. Maedhros held them for a long moment, until Ulfast cringed in fear, and hurriedly removed himself from the Elf-lord's disturbing gaze.

'Insolent whelp,' Maglor muttered.

Maedhros liked the Easterlings no better than his brother did, but in times of need one cannot afford to be picky.

And so, they marched at last, Eldar, mortal Men, and Dwarves in ugly, horrid masks, their grim silence punctured by the beats of war drums. Touching his Elennar**, the stone of Starfire, Maedhros sought Fingon in his mind. But he was unable to reach him. It was as if an impenetrable cloud hovered between them, an awareness of evil condensed into vapours that suffocated thought and sense. Morgoth's work; Maedhros could sense the malice. He recoiled and withdrew his mind, lest the Enemy would perceive it and lay bare its designs.

The gasping dusts of Anfauglith would be the battlefield, and the eastern army the bait. Once it had engaged Morgoth's forces and the beacon in the hills of Dorthonion was lit, Fingon's host would fall upon them from the Mountains of Shadow, and they would be caught between hammer and anvil. The union of Maedhros and Fingon would be a deadly embrace, crushing the life from their enemies. After that, the road to Angband would lie open.

The road to two of the three Silmarils.

'What is going on there?' Húrin asked with a frown. But surely he saw as much as Fingon did. The orcs were so close to Barad Eithel that the yellow of their eyes and fangs could be clearly seen. They were leading a prisoner towards the outworks, one of Morgoth's pitiable thralls. Fingon did not know him, but his fists and jaws clenched when he saw the empty sockets where the bright Elven eyes should have been. He cursed under his breath and heard the hissing and mutters of those around him, guessing what to expect.

It was worse. And it was disastrous. When the Elf's mutilated corpse dropped into the dust, hands, feet and head all mercilessly lopped off, someone went mad. Fingon caught a glimpse of a face contorted in fury and insanely blazing eyes at the head of a company of horsemen thundering towards the enemy from the outworks of the Barad.

'Stay, you fools!' he heard Húrin cry, but he was wasting his breath; and even as the Man spoke, the High King of the Noldor felt the madness overtake him.

'Sound the trumpets!' he shouted. Slamming his helm onto his head he drew his blade and raised it. Led by their King, his whole host leapt from the hills in a blaze of swords. The battle had begun.

Rushing forward, Fingon began to sing. His warriors joined their voices to his, and their song echoed from the hillsides, beautiful and terrible.

Had he always been wading through so much blood, and had the smell always been so oppressive? Had the noise of battle always been so deafening? His ears still rang with cries of exhortation and defiance, the thundering of hooves, the screams of the dying, the screeches of metal against metal. Was it Húrin he saw swinging his blade from the corner of his eye? Was it the haze in his eyes that turned the sky red, or did the sun set once more - and if so, what day was it?

Fingon removed his helm and shook his head, trying to clear it. The noises rang inside his head alone; around him, they had stopped. Though the sun was going down indeed, half eaten by the western mountains, it was not red but a dirty grey, veiled as it was by the smoke spreading from Angband. He felt as if his mind and body were disjoined, each fighting their own battle. He ordered them to unite. The leader of the army could not afford to be half crazed, half dazed, certainly not now that the tide had turned.

He looked about him, knowing that if Húrin was still alive, he would be near. And indeed there he was, beside the blue and silver banner of the House of Fingolfin drooping in the desolation of Anfauglith. He stood talking to a man of the Haladin.

Fingon stepped closer. 'What news from the People of Haleth?'

'Lord Haldir is slain with most of our men,' was the curt reply. No courtesy there, but Fingon remembered the blunt ways of the Haladin, and it would not do to rebuke a survivor. These men had given more than their due. All the Edain were fighting a war that was their own by choice, not by fate.

'I regret their passing,' he said, bending his head. 'I am forever indebted to them.' The next moment he realised there was no way to repay these dead the lives they had spent so freely - except by giving all, like they had done.

The Haladin warrior nodded briefly, and left.

Húrin's grim eyes sought Fingon's. 'Flame light!' was all he said, even as the sun disappeared behind the rim of the Ered Wethrin.

'Flee night!' Fingon replied.

When it was fully dark and they had heard all the dismal reports, they stretched on the ground, just as they were, dirty and weary, wrapping themselves in foul-smelling, tattered, bloodstained cloaks.

Yesterday, for a moment, victory had seemed within reach. The orc troops were beaten back to the very gates of Angband, and the Elves who had precipitated the onslaught came as far as Morgoth's doorstep. But none of them returned, and no one was able to follow them inside, for it was then the Enemy's main host issued forth and Elves and Edain alike began to see how hollow their hopes had been. The rest of the day, and the whole of the next, had been one long retreat. Yesterday, for the first time none raised their voices in song. As none sang tonight.

Staring up at the distant stars, Fingon remembered at last, which night it was, and what day it had been. The fourth.

Maedhros, he thought, too tired to feel despair. Why has he not come?

He dreamed. They were together again, their bodies joined; Fingon thrust inside his lover, riding him hard, but all the while he knew they were being watched. When he felt his climax approach, oddly enough he opened his eyes, which had been shut until then, and saw that the watcher was Morgoth. Or not Morgoth, for his appearance was that of Melkor as he had walked the roads of the Blessed Realm in fair semblance. But his mouth was a red, bleeding wound, his face was scarred, and when he took a step closer Fingon saw that he limped.

'Good,' Melkor said, smiling. 'Defy their laws. They are constricting. Sing your own song, as I did, and the world is yours - and his. Or be separated from him forever.' And he raised his voice, but all he sang was a terrible silence.

Fingon woke up with a pounding heart, sweating, and painfully erect, his whole body screaming for release. But despite the burning torment he would and could not let himself go, and he willed his arousal to subside. Lies, he told himself. Filthy lies. After a while, he rose and went to the Elf who kept watch beside the banner. 'Go and rest,' he told him. 'I shall take over for the remainder of the night.'

'Thank you, my lord,' the sentinel whispered, and Fingon was met by a surge of undeserved gratitude. He surveyed the plain with its flickering night fires, orange in the gloom, theirs hardly different from the Enemy's. Then, he turned his face to the sky, and seeing a faint streak of red in the east he briefly took it for the herald of sunrise - until he realised it was but a false dawn.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*That's right. I stick to the version of the published Silmarillion, ignoring Tolkien's second thoughts.

**TM Cirdan (the writer)

Chapter 8: Nightfall

Innumerable Tears Part 2

Read Chapter 8: Nightfall

 

Chapter Eight: Nightfall

The army marched at a speed that even the Eldar found taxing, but Maedhros spurred them on relentlessly. Mercilessly, he thought once, knowing it to be true, but his sense of urgency overrode all his other feelings. And as he could not find mercy even with himself, how would he find any with others?

Maglor complained once on behalf of their mortal allies, who lagged behind, and succeeded to provoke his grimly silent brother into a rant. 'So their feet are killing them? Then their feet must be in Morgoth's service. Tell them to lop off those treacherous limbs and crawl on all four, if they want their beloved ones to live out their miserably short lives!'

Maglor stared at him.

Maedhros thought of his own, treacherous hand serving Morgoth at Alqualondë, lopped off to prolong his miserable life - and all of a sudden it hurt again, ghostlike, as it had done so often since it was first severed by Fingon. 'I know,' he spat. 'My tongue is as foul as yours is fair.'

'You fear that Fingon has not postponed the attack,' his brother stated flatly.

As often, Maglor was right, though his truths were as gloomy as his songs, nowadays. 'We may yet come in time,' Maedhros said, trying to convince himself. 'We must make more haste.'

But as they rounded the last hills of Dorthonion and reached the easternmost stretches of Anfauglith, on the eve of their fifth marching day, his Elven-sight showed him how well founded his fears were. In the centre of the Gasping Dust a battle raged. The plain was a sea of fell creatures enclosing an island of once bright mail now red with blood and sunset, with a ragged banner of blue and silver in the middle.

'They are surrounded,' Maglor said, aghast.

They were. But it would take the eastern army almost a day to reach them.

'We shall not halt tonight,' Maedhros decided.

This time, darkness did not bring respite. By the dull red sheen of Angband's fires they fought on, the padding underneath their armour sweat-drenched or crusted and chafing. Their arms and feet seemed to lead a life of their own as they hacked and blocked and thrust and dodged, pressed ever more closely by the Enemy's troops. At last, when all they could do was defend themselves, Fingon ordered a thangail to be formed and exchanged his sword for a spear long enough to reach across the wall of shields.

He did not know how far they had retreated across the plain. Most of the time, he did not even know which way he faced and where to look for succour; though he clung to the hope that his brother had not sent all his troops into battle, and that Maedhros would be there by sunrise. If only their shield-wall would hold... Perhaps they could muster enough strength to make a last, desperate attempt to break out at first light...

Increasingly, he had to take recourse to memories he thought he had buried long ago. Memories of crossing a waste of cruel ice, in an endless night beneath the stars, of the body pressing on while the mind insisted that it was much easier to lie down and die, and of a coast emerging into view when all seemed lost. When he felt or saw anyone falter or sag with fatigue, whether Elda or Mortal, he shared those memories out, without knowing if and how they were received, though sometimes he felt an echo of gratitude, and once or twice a sustaining memory from a neighbouring mind.

When day broke, aid did come at last: his brother's host, marching up from the South, with steel unstained and bright in the glory of the morning. And Fingon heard the glad cries of Huor and felt the surge of joy in the heart of Húrin Thalion as Morgoth's orcs scattered before the swords of Turgon and his warriors, and the two armies merged after hours of hard fighting.

'We will yet prevail,' Turgon said when they embraced briefly amidst the carnage.

'This night has passed indeed!' Fingon replied.

There was no time for more words. To the east, the clear notes of war trumpets rang out to herald the arrival, longed for, despaired of and unnoticed in the heat of battle, of Maedhros and his army.

'So there he is...' Turgon remarked, and if there was a slight hint of mockery in his voice Fingon could easily forgive him for sheer relief.

With renewed vigour, they threw themselves at the orcs, as the Eastern army did from the other side, and for a while it seemed as if the tide had turned indeed, as if it was a matter of hours or less before their hosts would unite to rout Morgoth's troops and assail his fortress to retake and avenge.

But in their limited wisdom and failing Sight, none of them knew the true strength of their foe or the full weight of their doom. When it descended on them it came from the North, pouring towards them in the shape of wolves and wolfriders, of Balrogs, and of dragonspawn led by one huge, evil beast, a flame-belching Worm: Glaurung, father of Dragons.

And as Fingon saw the fire-drake approach, thrice greater than he remembered him, wedging his golden terror between the screaming armies, he remembered a hopeful thought from his past, from a moment of shared love in a glade in the forest. No dragon will come between us.

Yet it had.

Uldor and his fellow traitors had almost reached the standard, but it mattered not. They would never be able to join Fingon's army now, with so many Easterlings turned craven, others slaughtering Elves, and Glaurung and the Balrogs coming between them. The Dwarves had turned away the dragon, but then they had turned away themselves, and it was all one.

The Union of Maedhros! he thought, filled with self-loathing. What in Arda made me believe I could sow unity and reap victory? 'To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well,' as the Curse had foretold. Discord, death and destruction would ever be their harvest. Insights that came but with defeat.

Maedhros lowered his sword, a dead weight in his hand. He ought to fight on, kill more orcs - they were so much easier to kill than Elves - but he was filled with disgust rather than with battle fury, as if the evil glee of Morgoth was concentrating on him alone amidst the clamour and the bloodshed. Uldor was close by now. His eyes full of hatred were all that was visible of his face through the visor-slit of his helmet, the hate of the traitor for the betrayed. As my father would have hated Fingolfin, had he ever lived to meet him again, it crossed Maedhros' mind, an unbidden thought that drained his will to fight.

He will kill me, he thought. I hope it will not kill Fingon.

Uldor was not a tall man, and his curved blade entered Maedhros from below, between two shoulder plates of his armour. It was not enough to slay him, but he stumbled and sank to one knee, and he felt Uldor's foot against his hip, seeking leverage to jerk the blade out. It took some effort, and the Man staggered back. It was his undoing. Another blade flashed past in a wide, horizontal arc. The next moment, Uldor's head flew from his shoulders.

Maglor.

'Why do you not fight? What ails you, fool?' his brother shouted with uncharacteristic fury.

Blood welling from his shoulder, Maedhros tried to rise, but found he could not. 'The Oath,' he said hoarsely. 'The Kinslaying. The Curse. That is what ails us.'

This was defeat, as became increasingly clear, even if it would not be brought about by Glaurung. There was no limit to the darkness surging out of Angband to engulf them, and at the crest of that wave burned the evil flame of Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs and slayer of Fëanor. Other he was than Glaurung, the father of destruction, who was above all bent on wreaking havoc and bringing terror. The Lord of Balrogs went ahead with a purpose. The purpose of collecting the prize on the High King's head.

Try as they might, neither Fingon nor Turgon were able to keep their diminished hosts together. The unending stream of foes drove a wedge between them, as it had ever been the strategy of their Master to divide and rule. Even while laying about in the fray, Fingon found himself thinking that his own grandsire Finwë had unwittingly aided Morgoth by marrying twice, giving him the opportunity to create discord in his House. But then he realised he had just wished himself back to non-existence, questioning the very wisdom of his Creator. He cursed his own thoughts, and his heart cried out in fury that Arda should be so cruelly marred.

Too soon, he lost sight of his brother's standard, and all he could hope was that Turgon at least would escape this slaughter, and Húrin, who had fought at his side for so long. Again and again he raised his sword and brought it down, rising beyond the pain of fatigue, oblivious of wounds, knowing he would not live to see the sun set. His forces, hardly worth that name now, were hemmed in on all sides. His guards fought ferociously, knowing this to be their last battle and desiring to do all the damage they could before they were slain. Fingon glanced at the one fighting beside him, surprised to see it was not a guardsman. In that instant, the warrior turned his head to meet the gaze of his King, and Fingon saw his eyes.

Her eyes. It was Coiriel.

In the brief, motionless moment caused by his shock, Fingon neglected to parry the scimitar sweeping towards him.

But Coiriel saw it. She blocked the stroke with the very blade he had forged and given to her, less than a fortnight ago, and its wielder fell back. Then, whether she slipped and lost her balance or stumbled with exhaustion, she dropped to one knee. Another orc darted forward like a snake, aiming a spear at her unprotected eyes, and thrusting it deep into the left one. She toppled without a sound, even as Fingon cut her killer in two with one blow of Ringlach.

He felt his whole body shake then, and his eyes wanted to weep because she had died to protect one already doomed, but his will held back the tears that would blind him. There was no time for regret or mourning, for in the face of certain death every remaining heartbeat is precious even to the Eldar.

He steadied himself. Less than a dozen guards were left standing in this miserable plot of earth to which the High King Fingon's realm had shrunk. Leaping over Coiriel's empty shell he felt a strangely detached fury that made his blows and thrusts even more accurate, and deadlier than before. Towards the end, he reached eastward in his mind, seeking the one touch among a thousand that could ease the pain of passing, and just when the last of his guards was slain he found it, faint but unmistakable.

No more need to fear that Maedhros would be the next to fall into darkness, now that he knew that he would be the one. Briefly, Fingon begged forgiveness for feeling this small measure of relief, knowing what his beloved would have to suffer. Then he turned towards Gothmog, who towered over his coveted prize. He could ward off the first blow, and the next one, but before his numbed hand could raise his blade again, another balrog threw a coil of fire around him, pinning his arms against his body, and he was doomed.

And he knew that it had been so since Mandos spoke his Curse; this was merely the execution of the sentence. You proud, arrogant fool. Did you truly believe that children such as you could defeat a Power unaided?

Looking up, Fingon saw the black executioner's ax descend.

Dying was brutal but brief: a searing, blinding pain, followed by a sensation as if something was torn from him. And the High King of the Noldor was no more; what was left was a bleeding hull that had been his hröa once, and a naked fëa, aghast at being unhoused. Yet slain ye shall be - there it was, the Summons - and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos - he shrank back, be it only for a moment - and there long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies - already he felt lost without it - and find little pity - he deserved none at all - though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you - but few of them would, and he would spend many long ages suing for pardon.

And yet there was no other House open to him, and his spirit flew home.

Maedhros did not know who dragged him to safety. He could not care less about safety. He was wounded, and in pain, but the suffering of his body was nothing compared to the agony of his soul.

I am guilty of his death, he thought. Fingon had but fought this battle to prevent the Sons of Fëanor from slaying their Elven-kin once more. If I had not loved him I would have defied him, High King or no, and attacked those who held the Silmaril all the same. And he would still be alive.

So even his love was deadly. This was what it meant to be cursed. All that you touch shall wither. All that you love shall be lost. He was Fëanor’s heir and Fëanor’s long shadow into times to come, blocking out the light to all that was near to him.

When Maglor came to see him, Maedhros had struggled to a sitting position. His shoulder was bandaged, his arm in a sling. The right one, meaning the useless one. An irrelevant mercy.

'What news from the West?' he asked his brother, who stood at the edge of the clearing where they had sought refuge for a while.

Maglor hesitated, looking dismal. He cleared his throat as if he meant to chant a dirge, like the dwarves had done when Glaurung slew their King. His eyes focused on a point behind his brother, and his thoughts were shrouded - yet obvious.

'Fingon? That is not new,' Maedhros said with a stony face, wishing he had a stone for a heart. 'I know he is dead. I felt him die, I saw his flame flare, and fade. But he fought valiantly until the end.'

Now, Maglor came closer, limping a little. 'Yes,' was all he said, avoiding his brother's eyes.

'I did not know you were wounded,' Maedhros said.

'Nothing worth dwelling on,' Maglor said. His voice sounded strange, as if the gold in it was tarnished. 'It heals fast; a few hours ago I could hardly even stand. Your wound must be healing, too. You ought to be able to move on. We cannot stay here. There are orcs roaming about.'

Instead of rising, Maedhros lay back.

'Did you hear what I said?' his brother demanded to know.

'The dead cannot hear the living.'

'You must not...'

'I am dead!' Maedhros cried, loud enough to send a flock of birds into the air, squeaking and flapping nervously. The warriors resting on the other side of the clearing - where his face bothered them less - turned their heads.

'If you insist,' his brother said coolly. 'But forgive me if I postpone the burial awhile. I have some more brothers to account for first.' He began to limp away.

The next moment, he halted to look back, and suddenly there were tears on his cheeks. 'He is free, Maitimo. Broken, and freed to be remade, however long it may take. Cling to that.'

Free of me. Stupid, well-meaning brother, why did you stop Uldor from finishing me? 'Believe me, if I were alive I would weep,' whispered Maedhros.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*Sindarin: shield-wall

Chapter 9: The Quick and the Dead

Read Chapter 9: The Quick and the Dead

 

Chapter Nine: The Quick and the Dead

The Houses of the Dead were grey with mist and stark with silence. It seemed to Fingon that the mist and the silence were one, and all about him. He floated in them as in a sea of sorrow. Thus he remained, pervaded by mourning and regret, until a presence made itself felt, huge, towering endlessly over him, dropping away beneath him like a bottomless pit, stretching out all about him like a vast, boundless plain. Mandos, house and dweller alike.

He knelt and looked up, or whatever it was disembodied spirits without knees and a face did to subject themselves to judgement. To his fëa, it did feel like kneeling and facing. And naked he felt, too, as if he was being tried before a huge, hungry mob, stripped to the skin, with nothing to hide his shame, his marring, his pain and his fear.

Perhaps he was. What if those he had killed and led into disaster and sent into a bloody and disastrous war were watching him now, reduced to his bare essence?

Whatever that was.

'How do you plead?' asked Námo the Judge, voiceless, faceless, bodiless: why wear a fana to speak with the dead? It did in no way diminish his presence, daunting, forbidding, far greater than Fingon remembered from the halcyon days of Valinor - unless it was he who had shrunk. He realised he could not remember the Mandos who trod the pathways of the Blessed Realm in the body of a Firstborn. This was the Mandos of the Doom of the Noldor, the Power that his mind used to cringe from in Beleriand, whenever he remembered his red hands. The only Power in this place.

'How do you plead?' repeated the Judge.

'Guilty,' Fingon answered. It was strange to speak without a voice, to sound without reverberating. It felt wrong. He hated it already.

'Guilty of what?'

'Kinslaying.'

'Why did you do it?'

Fingon thought for a while. 'I failed to think,' he answered finally, with an effort. 'I saw my friends under attack and rushed in. Unthinkingly. I rue the moment I drew my sword. But I truly believed -'

'It is enough if you answer my questions,' the Judge said sternly.

'I bend to you, aire.*'

There was a pause.

'Guilty of what else?' asked Námo.

This was more difficult. Killing Telerin mariners who fought to protect their ships was by far the worst thing he had done in his life, it seemed to him. Of what else was he guilty? Of believing, like most of his kin, that the Noldor were great enough to defeat one of the Powers on their own? Of stubbornly fighting on, wasting countless lives including his own, instead of acknowledging his error and praying for help? There were more ways to kill than by wielding a blade: by leading others into disaster he had slain them just as effectively.

Suddenly, he knew with perfect clarity that all his thoughts were an open book to this stern and inexorable Vala, but that it took a conscious act of will to turn such speculations into confessions that would elicit a response.

So let them be confessions, he decided.

'Then,' the Judge said, having read him, 'I assume you are prepared to ask forgiveness of the fëar of all those you harmed with your sword, your word, your pride, and your call to war? Of the Teleri of Alqualondë, some dwell in my House still. Of the others, many arrived not long before you.'

Fingon was taken aback. 'Ask forgiveness? Of all of them?'

'All that are here.'

'How many?'

'Count them as you go, if you must,' was the dispassionate reply.

He realised he had not known what shame and fear was until now. Compared to this, standing naked in the flesh before a leering crowd would be a pleasure.

'But some - or many - may not be willing to forgive me,' he objected.

Justice does not yield. 'If you want their forgiveness, ask them again. And again.'

Fingon balked. This was too much; asking it once ought to be enough. But turning his mind to the Judge he became aware of the emptiness that had replaced the stern and imposing presence confronting him mere moments ago. Námo had withdrawn to where he could not follow, and once more the grey silence enveloped him.

He mourned. He yearned for his body. His memories assailed him and he could not ward them off. But what he remembered was not the blue of the sunlit sky or running rivers, the green of lush meadows or waving forests, the flaming reds of a sunset. What was love in a place like this? What was joy? He remembered dying. Fighting. Killing. He needed to rest, to find peace. So he withdrew into himself.

But he could not rest, and the peace eluded him.

In his mind, a living tapestry was being woven. There was one Telerin mariner he remembered because the sea grey of his tunic matched the sea grey of his eyes. That was before his blade made a red stain on the front of the tunic and the eyes glazed over. Fingon had been better armed, and not a drop of the blood staining his clothes afterwards had been his own. An unfair fight. At the time, he believed that the Teleri were waylaying the Noldor on the behest of the Valar, and that it was his freedom he fought for. Much was allowed in such a battle, he thought and the mariner had not begged for mercy.

Now he knew that Olwë and his people had only defended their most beloved creations, something every Noldo should understand. And the freedom he had longed for proved to be as elusive as his shadow - not even worth his own life, let alone another's.

So, if he were a Telerin mariner, why would he forgive?

Pointless to beg.

I want to be properly punished, he thought. Let Námo pronounce his sentence and be done with it. So many thousands of disembodied years. Dead for the lifetime of Arda and no parole, if that is what it takes.

But then, he wondered what Time meant in these halls and how its passage was measured. Not by the slow wheeling of the stars, nor by the swift waxing and waning of the moon or the vaulting of the sun across the sky. Those were words for nothing in this place beyond all places.

After several long rounds of thought that always ended where they began, Fingon became aware of the presence of another inmate of this prison, another fëa next to his own, or perhaps close would be a better word. Not a Vala but someone his own size - insofar as size mattered in a place as large as Death yet no larger than the room within each lonely soul. And it was a sad presence.

'It grieves me to find you here, too,' the other fëa said. 'While we were alive I only wished you well, though at times it must have seemed otherwise. Can you forgive me?'

Recognising him, Fingon was dismayed, feeling that he should have sought Fingolfin out, instead of the other way around. 'But how could a son presume to forgive his father?' he asked.

'Like a father would presume to forgive his son, if he asked for it?'

It was then, that Fingon allowed the first thought of Maedhros to emerge from the abyss of his despondency. Was it possible? Could they be reconciled over the love his father had abhorred?

There was an indefinite pause. It occurred to him that he was asking for the possibility of unconditional love to exist in Arda Marred.

'I beg your forgiveness,' he whispered finally, 'and you have mine.'

The colour of his father's presence shifted, as when a gust of air causes grey waters to shiver with brilliance. 'O, my son.' Another, gentler ripple. 'Do you know that this is a beginning?'

'Not a very hard one,' Fingon replied.

A movement of assent. 'For me, it is perhaps a little more difficult.'

After a while, Fingon realised what his father meant. 'Your half-brother?'

'Yes, my brother.'

'Did you...' Fingon hesitated. 'Did he...?'

'He begins to listen, I trust.' his father answered.

There was no need for more words. If my father speaks with Curufinwë Fëanaro, I cannot sit here and remain stubbornly silent, Fingolfin's son thought after another, indefinite pause. I must move on.

To go on was to inflict his death on others.

The snow around Doriath was trampled by the feet of kinslayers. Much of it was red or pink, as the surviving warriors had used it to clean their bloodstained blades. Everywhere, bodies lay bedded in the snow, attackers and defenders alike. In death, they looked the same. They would. They were all Elves.

Except Dior Eluchil, Maedhros thought with the precision of detachment as he sat on a tree trunk amidst the dead. Dior was but half Elven. His corpse lay inside Menegroth, side by side with those of Celegorm, whom he had killed, and Curufin, who had killed him but not survived his avenging blow for long. Caranthir was also dead. And the Silmaril they had tried to regain had vanished. He knew that the jewel was no longer in Menegroth, though his three remaining brothers still continued their futile search of a thousand lifeless caves.

Or two of the three, for looking up he saw Maglor approach between the black boles of the trees. His eyes were swollen, his face was grimy, like that of a boy who has wiped away his tears with dirty little hands. He halted three yards from his brother. Most people kept their distance nowadays. Maedhros supposed he looked more terrible than ever, probably because he was dead but for the semblance of life suggested by the motions of his hröa.

'They are gone,' said Maglor, shivering despite his cloak.

'They? There was only one Silmaril in Doriath,' Maedhros told him.

'I mean our brothers!' Maglor almost yelled, before adding in a more level tone: 'I gave orders to bury them. We cannot just leave their bodies in Thingol's halls.'

I know what you meant to say, Maedhros thought. But why mourn? At least they will shed no more blood. What does it matter where the body decays, when the soul is doomed to darkness everlasting? There are worse places to rot than in the dwellings of dead kings whose hands touched a Silmaril. But he kept his thoughts to himself.

'Why are you sitting here in your shirt, Russandol?' his brother suddenly asked. 'It is freezing. Surely you must be cold?'**

Maedhros shrugged. 'I could not bear my armour any more. And I do not feel the cold. I could roll naked through the snow, and it would not affect me.'

'Yet you have not used it to wash the blood from your hand.'

'My hand deserves to remain bloody. And you may have washed your hands, but there is still blood on your left cheek and in your hair.'

Maglor scooped up a handful of snow and tried to clean the gore away. 'Is it gone yet?' he asked when the snow had melted, pink liquid dripping from his chin.

'Some of it,' Maedhros said tiredly. Do not deceive yourself, Maglor. And please, go away.

But Maglor stayed. 'Do you know where Celegorm's servants have taken the boys?' he wanted to know.

'What boys?'

'Dior's sons. I heard they were taken to the woods, but...' Maglor's voice trailed off.

Strangely enough, Maedhros felt something stir then, a faint tingle of his frozen heart that seemed to indicate that it was not entirely dead yet. He averted his face.

When they found Celegorm's servants, the rumour turned out to true. The boys had been left in the woods to die from exposure or starvation or worse. By some twisted logic, his underlings seemed to consider this a fitting revenge for the demise of their lord. Maedhros rebuked them, and if his brother had left him in peace, that was all he would have done. But much later that day, on the way home, Maglor asked him if they waged war on children, and how much deeper they could fall. Neither of them knew the answer, but it was Maedhros who slipped away in the dead of night to seek Dior's sons in the depths of the forest.

Threading a path among the black, contorted trees, his feet marring the moonlit snow, he wondered what someone like him would want with a child. Son was a word to be cherished by others; his love had been barren like winter, burning like frost, a scalding blaze that could never warm the hearth of a home. Being what he was, he had not regretted it - until the loss of Fingon had robbed him even of that fire.

But now... the flame of a child's spirit was young and strong. If he could save those two, or even one of them, would its heat thaw him up, and would he be able to bear the pain this would bring? Would they, perhaps, remind him of the child he had been once, in a different Age of the world, before the loss of light and innocence, limb and the life of his kin?

He did not know the answers, nor were they hidden in the forest. Footprints he found, but nothing more: emptiness where a living thing had passed, traces of existence short-lived as a winter season. When the snows melted, Maedhros ceased his vain search.

To Maglor, he said that the boys must have fallen prey to the stray wolves he had cut down. Sadly, his brother agreed this had to be the case. But Maedhros knew better: there were no wolves left in those dead forests. The only predator for many leagues around was he, more fearsome and ferocious than any wolf. The sons of Dior Eluchil were swallowed by the black pit where his heart had been.

Two more down, he found himself thinking. How many left to go, for the sake of his father's jewels? Did he still want them? He thought not. If he cared about nothing else, why should he still care about the Oath?

And so, he forswore it.

The first fëa whose forgiveness he begged was Coiriel's, mostly because he expected it to be easy. To his dismay he found that not every refusal to forgive is born from hatred or caused by a grudge. She told him there was naught to forgive.

Fingon doubted that this would be acceptable to the Judge, and he renewed his plea, pointing out that he had let her die in vain; she had merely saved him for Gothmog's black axe. But proud as she was of her sacrifice Coiriel would not allow him to diminish it by admitting she had anything to forgive him.

Fingon reported back to the Judge. 'What am I to do if it does not work, aire?'

'Work? What do you mean?' Námo Mandos wanted to know.

'I mean,' Fingon began - and faltered. What did he mean?

'You had better think it over,' the Vala told him.

So Fingon thought, and thought, and at some point he supposed that he had been too impatient to make it work, and that learning to wait was a lesson long overdue. And while he began to exercise patience, another imprisoned fëa sought him out.

'Forgive me for failing you at your last battle, Finno***,' the other said. It was Turgon.

Overcoming his initial shock to find his own brother among the dead, he replied: 'But you did not fail me, Turno***. The battle was lost through no fault of yours.'

'That is not how I see it.'

The mixture of stubbornness and despondency permeating Turgon's presence bothered Fingon so much that he said: 'If it helps you to move on, I will grant you whatever forgiveness you need.'

The response was chilly, or it would have been if Fingon had still been able to feel cold. 'You think I am collecting pardons to be rehoused as soon as possible? You could not be more mistaken!' And Turgon began to recede and turn away.

'Wait!' Fingon said. 'Turno, brother, there is no way I will grant you a pardon that you do not need. But I am willing to acknowledge that you did not do enough. Neither did I. There was no way either of us could have done enough, as the Doom of the Noldor foretold us. Let it not stand between us.'

At that, the cold began to lift, though Turgon spoke no more, and seemed to withdraw into himself. Fingon tried to reach out to him, but his brother slipped from his feeble embrace.

Pensively, Fingon returned to the Judge. 'Work was the wrong word,' he confessed. 'I cannot earn a new body by urging others to forgive me, can I?'

'It appears that you begin to see more clearly,' was the reply. For the first time, the Vala seemed to relent.

'My brother helped me. He is wiser than I am,' Fingon ventured.

'He has different things to learn.'

The tapestry in his mind - if it was in his mind - came alive again. Fingon saw Coiriel leap in to shield him, with purposeful grace. He saw her fall, the knowledge that she had but delayed the inevitable etched on her dying face.

When he returned to her she was surprised, not expecting him back. He told her how right she was: that he felt bound to beg her forgiveness did not mean she owed it to him to honour his plea, for how could she forgive him if she did not blame him? Having been forced to decline her offer of love he could but accept the offer of her death. She was right. Her death was her own.

Coiriel was silent. 'Your humility dwarfs my pride, aranya,' she said at last, sadly.

'Aranya? There are no kings here.' How would a disembodied fëa wear a crown or hold a sceptre? Yet he knew too well that this humility of his was nothing but pride of a high king come down. He knew had a long way to go yet.

When it became known that Dior's daughter held the Silmaril at the Mouths of Sirion, Maedhros did not march against her, for had he not forsworn the Oath? So he left his sword in its scabbard. His three remaining brothers did the same, none of them more relieved than Maglor.

But it is impossible to shed your shadow, or to disregard your the past as if it has not shaped you. How had he ever thought he could? If he left Elwing alone, the bloodshed in Doriath would have served no purpose whatsoever. Dior and Nimloth and all those other Doriathrim - pointlessly slaughtered. Their young sons - perished for naught. His brain writhed and twisted to see the logic of abandoning the hunt for the bloody jewel. Vainly. The Oath had destroyed his heart, yet apparently that was not sufficient. Now it attempted to demolish his mind as well. This was what happened when you wanted the impossible: to forswear an oath sworn in the name of Ilúvatar Himself.

There was no appeal.

He saw it in his brothers, too, the twins and even Maglor, who tried so hard to be true to himself. Fëanor's sons were ensnared in their father's fate, as Eluréd and Elurín in Dior's.

There was no escape.

We had better remain consistent, his tormented brain told him. Do we not owe it to our victims to have killed them for a reason?

Elwing also seemed to think there was a reason - or else she would not have jumped into the sea and abandoned her children when the attack came, merely to save the Silmaril. And save it she did; though her sons would have perished if Maglor had not found them and allowed his heart to be touched by their innocence, and the fact that the boys were twins like Amrod and Amras.

Who were slain and doomed to everlasting darkness. As were Celegorm, Caranthir and Curufin.

Though his own chance of getting heirs was forever past, and though he did envy the boys their youth and innocence, Maedhros did not begrudge Maglor his love for these newfound sons. But for the rebellion and flight of the Noldor, his brother would have fathered children of his own on the bride he had reluctantly left behind in Valinor. For a son of Fëanor, he would make a passable father.

After the first confusion following the destruction of the Havens, Maedhros managed to avoid these children worth less than a Silmaril - until one day he went to too seek his brother and found an unknown boy reading one of Maglor's books. When asked, the strange boy refused to give his name. 'Why? You could not keep me and my twin apart anyway,' he said, vainly trying to hide his too obvious unease behind a mask of belligerence.

He guessed it was one of the peredhil. 'I was well able to keep my own twin brothers apart,' Maedhros told him.

'And you sent them to their deaths together,' was the shrill reply, before the peredhel fled his presence.

Maedhros blinked. It was plain that Elwing's son did not only fear him, but despised him as well.

He said as much to Maglor, asking him for curiosity's sake if teaching those children some manners had proved too difficult.

His brother shook his head. 'I never told them to despise you, Russandol. He must have seen that you despise yourself. Do not deny that you do.'

'Do I not have every reason to?' Maedhros asked. 'I am the one who orders the slaughter. The one who leads his brothers to their doom. You think that raising children can make you forget our father's Oath? You still deceive yourself, then. If I tell you to take up your sword and fight again, you will, though you would never do it of your own accord now. That is why I am despicable - and you know it.'

Maglor took a step closer, and another one, until their noses almost touched. 'You are mistaken.'

For a moment, Maedhros thought that his brother was going to kiss him, and he tensed, ready to push him away. But it did not happen.

Turning away to the window Maedhros asked: 'Which twin do you think it was I met?'

A sigh. 'Elrond, most likely, given the fact that you found him with a book. Don't be too angry with him,' Maglor added forlornly.

Maedhros was incapable of anger. Nor could he rejoice like his brother did when, one evening shortly afterwards, the Silmaril appeared in the sky, blazing in all its glory. After all, there were still two Silmarils left on earth, the Oath was unredeemed, and a sense of foreboding told him the jewels were not safe in Morgoth's crown.

'Why should I forgive you?' the Telerin fëa asked Fingon. 'You murdered me. You sent me to languish in this place and long for my body for many more years than you have been here. I left a wife behind, and children; parents, sisters, and friends. Even if I could forgive you my suffering, how could I ever forgive you their grief? Do not ask the impossible.'

Fingon, remaining silent, found himself wondering if this was the mariner with the sea green tunic he remembered slaying. It did not seem to matter, nor did one ask a victim about the colour of the clothes he wore when one's blade took his life. Yet something told him that this was the very person he remembered so vividly.

His victim's angry misery was oppressive; it seemed to billow about him like a sultry cloud, dark smoke from a smouldering soul. Briefly, Fingon was tempted to ask him why he had not begged for mercy. But the moment passed: no one deserved to be brought in to a situation where they should have to plea for what was rightfully theirs. So he begged him forgiveness, not once, but repeatedly. He would have been prepared to go on doing so, except that it apparently added to the other's anguish. And he ceased. 'You are right. I do not know why you should grant me pardon.'

Again, he returned to the Judge. 'There is one fëa...' He faltered, his carefully wrought arguments forgotten. But Námo Mandos seemed to be waiting patiently, and at last Fingon blurted out his despair. 'I keep begging his forgiveness again and again, but he cannot bear with me, aire. Can I not stop tormenting him? Why do you not release him? What has he done wrong?'

Those last two questions seemed overbold, and Fingon expected a rebuke, but the reply was composed as ever. 'That remains a matter between him and me,' said Námo, 'unless you can find answers of your own and act on them. Find a valid reason why he should forgive you. Such a reason exists.'

'Would it not be selfish to do so?' Fingon objected.

As before, the Vala merely said: 'Think it over.'

So Fingon sat, and thought, and thought, until he was ready to return to the mariner. 'I can give you a reason why you should forgive me,' he told him.

'I do not want to hear it,' the other replied.

'You do. For it is precisely your refusal to forgive me that keeps you here. If you will not do it for my sake, do it for your own.'

'And my family, and my friends? I cannot speak on their behalf.'

'They will accept it,' Fingon said calmly, knowing it to be true. 'As it will lead to your return, they will accept it. And you do not need to forgive me what I did to them, only what I did to you. If I am ever released, I will beg their forgiveness as well.'

The Telerin mariner remained stubborn. 'You only try to make me accept your plea for your own sake.'

To that, too, Fingon had the answer. 'There is no way I can keep my own benefit out of this,' he admitted. 'But will you truly let me,' - he braced himself - 'the one you hate and despise most, stand between you and your release?'

The silence that followed was so long that the impatience Fingon was doing his utmost to unlearn, threatened to resurface. It felt like an itch of the soul for which speaking was the only cure, yet he knew that he would spoil everything if he urged for an answer.

In the end, he was unable to remain completely silent. But much as he yearned to hear the other deny his hatred and scorn, he forced himself to say: 'I will go now. Let this be a matter between you and the Judge.'

Unable to tell what the mariner would do, and knowing he might never find out, Fingon left to seek out the next Telerin Elf he had killed.

Outside the Halls of Mandos, the Sun burned and turned and the stars trod their slow dance, the winds blew and the waves crashed, but he could see, nor hear, nor feel it.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*Holy One. The proper way to address a Vala, according to the Elves of Aman (shameful confession: I can't find the footnote...)

**In LotR, Legolas does not seem much affected by the snowstorm on Caradhras. On the other hand, in 'Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin', we read that both Tuor and Voronwë were 'tormented by the cold' (p. 38). As this story is set in the First Age, I've decided to ignore the LotR evidence in favour of UT: Elves, too can suffer from cold.

***These versions of their names suggested by Círdan (thanks).

Chapter 10: A Gaping Chasm

This chapter is dedicated to Tyellas, in gratitude - may you continue to write inspirational stories and essays!

Read Chapter 10: A Gaping Chasm

 

Chapter 10: A Gaping Chasm

Morgoth was defeated, his Iron Crown was beaten into a collar for his neck, and the two remaining Silmarils were recaptured.

Beleriand, once green and fair, was full of fire and smoke, a ruin of rifts and raging waters. The Eldar who had survived the War of Wrath were summoned to depart from the Hither Shores. And Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, claimed the Silmarils on behalf of the Powers.

'They are ours,' Maedhros and Maglor agreed, and they sent Eönwë a message, telling him to yield up Feänor's jewels, their inheritance and rightful property.

The answer made short shrift of their claim. They were killers, slayers of their own kin, and as such they had forfeited every right to their father's work. They were invited to lay their claim before the Valar and bide their judgement.

Never, Maedhros told himself, weary and filled with loathing, though not very surprised. So even Eönwë the Maia was incapable of letting the jewels go. They were all alike; was Morgoth not of the same ilk? Perhaps their father had seen it clearly after all, with the lucidity of the fey and fated.

His brother insisted on seeing it differently. He spoke of submitting, of being forgiven and finding peace. Of course, he was delusional again. Their best hope lay in swift execution. Even in the unlikely case that they would find forgiveness, did Maglor truly believe that they would ever be able to forget? That the Valar could wipe out their Oath as if it had never existed, or prevent it from tormenting them until the End of Arda? Was not an Oath, sworn in the name of the One, more powerful than any Power?

'How shall our voice reach to Ilúvatar beyond the Circles of the World?' Maedhros asked. 'And by Ilúvatar we swore in our madness, and called the Everlasting Darkness upon us, if we kept not our word. Who shall release us?

'If none can release us,' Maglor said, his golden singer's voice tarnished with sorrow, 'then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking.'(1)

'Folly. If we break our Oath, darkness is certain,' Maedhros said. 'While if we keep and redeem it, there will be no need for release.'

'Why do I think,' his brother asked, 'that it is you, who refuses to release me?'

'Defy me, then!' Maedhros held his brother's gaze, knowing that Maglor was unable to avert his eyes. 'Defy me, if you think it is the right thing to do.'

'You remain my elder brother, and I am bound to bend to you,' Maglor sighed. 'If I defy you, will I not act wrongly by choosing right? And if I obey you, will I not act rightly by choosing wrong?'

You do not want to defy me at all, little brother, Maedhros thought. Or you would not be arguing. You would be gone. 'If every doom you can deem is both right and wrong, choice is an illusion,' he replied harshly.

His brother averted his face in defeat.

Why did I not help him? Maedhros wondered. He ought to act alone, leave Maglor to his delusions, allow him to believe what he wished to believe. But he knew that he could not. Alone: that was Thangorodrim, where a lonely body hung suspended from a rock face, tormented even beyond the endurance of the Firstborn, yet having no choice but to endure the chain that bound him body and soul until someone came to condemn him to life.

No choice but to endure. His flesh fettered to the stone with cruel steel. His soul shackled to his flesh with the crueler bonds of Morgoth's sorcery, preventing it to flee. His life bound to an Oath that would not die, the cruelest captivity of all.

He had become the Oath. A blasphemous swear of flesh, suspended from a rock face for murder, cowardly weakness and deceit. Why had Fingon not slain the Oath that was Maedhros, son of Fëanor? Because there was no release for him. He had not been allowed to flee, for he was fated to survive.

But the face of Thangorodrim would stare at him ever after - would continue to do so till the breaking of Arda Marred, though the War of Wrath had erased the rock itself from the face of the earth. The Oath made flesh had never been rescued, Morgoth's chain had never been severed by power of steel or song, and after Thangorodrim it had fettered Fingon as well. He loved me as a payment for his cruel salvation, Maedhros thought. The aches of desire and the pangs of love had merely alleviated his woes - torment mitigated by pain. Now he knew why Fingon's love had to hurt so much: to protect him from worse.

His brother's love for him was also great enough to hurt. And therefore, Maglor had to come along.

'Follow me,' Maedhros said.

And so, by this lack of choice, the Oath was redeemed at last with blood and suffering, as was appropriate, though neither right nor proper. Redeemed, and made vain, for sullied flesh could not touch the jewels hallowed by Varda; it was scorched by their purity, burning with undying heat.

Staggering agony drove Maedhros on for an indefinite time till he sank to his knees in some uncharted place. Ahead of him was a gaping chasm filled with fire that could not possibly hurt more than the blaze in his hand. He remembered the Silmarils as they had been, rejoicing in light, receiving it and giving it back in hues more marvellous than before. But all they gave back now was the blood-red glare of the flame inextinguishable that seared his hand.

His remaining hand. Already, it was charred; he would never be able to use it again. Both his hands were gone now, one lost to an edge of cold steel, the other to claws of searing light. The Oath was made void indeed, for he had been the Oath, and it had no hands left to deal death and none to hold on to an existence that was no longer life.

Maglor, he thought, but his brother had disappeared into the opposite direction, pulling the tatters of his life about him to shield himself from the coming winter of despair. Poor Maglor, son of Fëanor. May his doom be on your head, father, Maedhros dared to think for the first and last time in his life. Bereft of both hands he rose awkwardly, took one step and threw himself into the furnace roaring at his feet.

Maedhros, made and unmade by fire.

The mind did have eyes, and Fingon's sight increased as his stay in Mandos wore on. He could see the Weaver's webs now, telling the Tale of Arda, and as he grew better accustomed to death, the tapestries seemed to come more alive. Each thread had a hue of its own and stood out against all others; all threads mattered and none could be missed, or the beauty of the larger pattern would be diminished.

As he observed and admired the tapestries, moving through time while space passed by, his fëa brushed against many others among the houseless. Together with kin and friends and old foes he saw deeds and omissions caught in the warp and weft of a common history, and the tale grew in the telling.

At some point, he found himself in the presence of the Judge again.

'Have you won your freedom now?' Námo asked him

Fingon's lack of surprise was a measure of his understanding. He could see now that if Mandos still confined him, it was not punishment that kept him here. 'I have spoken with all whose forgiveness I should seek, have I not, Aire?' he replied. 'Yet I know that I am not yet free.'

'What taint is it that clings to your fëa? What is it that still binds you?'

Fingon hesitated. 'The fetters of a love that should never have been,' he replied at last, feeling the weight of his own words drag him down like the heaviest of chains. The pain it caused bit deeper than any hurt of the body that he could still remember.

'Why should it not have been?' the Judge asked impassively.

'It was barren. Our seed went to waste, for were we not under the Curse?'

A pause. 'Indeed you were. But tell me, how many of the scions of Finwë who left Aman bore fruit in Middle-earth?'

Preparing to count them, Fingon soon realised there was very little to count. 'Only my sister,' he said. 'She bore a son in the sunless woods of Nan Elmoth, or so I heard.'

'A rotten fruit. Your sister-son Maeglin betrayed Gondolin to Morgoth,' said the Vala, and the reverberations of his soundless words sent cold tremors through Fingon's naked fëa. 'Finwë sired five children and was granted fifteen grandchildren. The number of his great-grandchildren is but four (2). A tree nearly stripped bare, whipped by bitter winds of the North. How could any love of yours have been other than barren? How could it have been more unsullied than you were?'

There seemed to be no answer, yet with great effort Fingon offered the only certainty he possessed up to the scrutiny of his judge: 'Yet it was...' and corrected himself: 'Yet it is.'

A grey mist of silence enveloped him; was he going blind once more, losing every glimmer of insight he had gleaned?

'So this is what still binds you?'

Blinds you? he thought. 'What else could it be? Are there any more whose forgiveness I must beg?' Fingon asked, uncertain. Perhaps he had overlooked some.

'There are.'

'Who are they?'

'The answer is not beyond your ability to find.'

Was it? Then why did it elude him? Perhaps he would find it in Vaire's webs. And so, Fingon went to look at them once more. But what he found was not the answer he sought. He found a new tapestry.

It showed him Maedhros, casting himself into a gaping chasm filled with fire.

Flames consumed him.

The red-hot agony turned to blackness when his fëa wrenched itself from its hröa. Or perhaps not blackness. Nothingness. His senses were quenched and crushed. He was aware of existing, no more. What was left of him was nowhere, except in the past. It was called Maedhros Maitimo Russandol Nelyafinwë: names for hurtful and hideous memories. Nothing lay ahead, or so it seemed, until the summons came.

Why should he heed the call? Why flee from doom to doom? The darkness would not grow any less, nor end any sooner: forever lasted forever.

But the pull was strong. He wondered why.

He wondered why he cared.

'Did you summon him, Aire?' asked Fingon anxiously.

A thoughtless question, but Námo answered it all the same. 'I did.'

'Is he coming?'

'I cannot tell you.'

'Where is he?' If Fingon had still possessed a voice, he would have screamed.

'Nowhere.'

'He has to come! Make him obey!'

'You know that this is not within my power. He is free to refuse,' the Judge spoke, neither moved to wrath nor to pity.

'Free? When has Maedhros ever been truly free, bound by the Oath as he was? Could he have refused to swear it? How can a son rebel against his father?'

How indeed?

Fingolfin had wanted his son to give up his lover. His son had taken the liberty to walk a path of his own. The Valar, who had instructed and helped the Eldar like parents, had wished for the Noldor to remain in the Blessed Realm. They had taken the liberty to walk paths of their own. Once more, Fingon saw himself draw a sword to fight for freedom and the right to reject. Misguided as the deed had been, the right was his beyond the shadow of a doubt. As Maedhros was free to refuse the summons.

Why should he come? What could be left of their love, after everything he had done? And could he who had been Fingon still love someone who had murdered again and again, until all that was left for him to do was to murder himself? What could he say to him, if their fëar met in these Halls? What could he possibly say that would be not be a reproach?

You are free to refuse, Maitimo, if that is your true desire, his thought cried out. But I beg you - heed the summons! I beg you to come!

Around him, the grey mist grew darker, and he was blown away like a dried leaf. 'He is coming.' The words of the Vala seemed to reach him from afar, as if Fingon was receding from him at great speed.

He moved through twilight, or perhaps it was the twilight that moved. Everywhere, shadows drifted and shifted as he receded ever further from the centre of Mandos. The whispers of other fëar insinuated themselves into his awareness, a confused and confusing chorus. But as he passed them by, individual voices made themselves heard.

He heard those who had foregone rehousing, their voices laden with regret...

I chose the lower road leading downward, not content with the one fruit my tree bore, and much evil followed. I deprive myself of life to atone for a love too short of perfection -

I followed my husband in his rebellion because I loved him above the Valar and my own kin. Now this love keeps me bound to him while he remains in these Houses -

I was foolhardy enough in battle, but my love was thin and wise. Now my beloved has passed beyond the circles of the world, and without her I do not have the heart to live (3) -

... the mutterings of those Mandos held in waiting, heavy with resentment or pride...

Should I have loved him who took me against my will - or have died instead? Did I not have the right to take and possess my son, I who bore him? Was it my fault that he became a traitor? Should I have let others deprive me of my father's love? Let others deprive me of the work of my hands? Shared love and light with those who shunned me and my fire? -

Should we have loved others above our father, the works of strangers above his, the oath of a cousin above our own, the lives of others above our souls? -

... to the grumbling of twisted voices, increasingly harsh and ugly...

... who is he... one of them that got away... I was less lucky...

They were everywhere around him. Who are these people? Fingon thought. Why am I here? Where is this?

... carried off to torture... body racked and mind warped ... distorted mirror... spawned a foul brood to be detested by such as he... born to slave and obey... to fight and kill... how did this one loathe us! ... cut us down, cut us up to devour us... sharp teeth tearing at us... ah, but he also killed his own kind ... just like we did, at times... his fair flesh growing foul, too... rotting beside ours... indistinguishable from ours... come here to dwell among us... where he belongs... remember the tang of blood, brother... the salt of the marred earth... the rich taste of death...?

The truth, when he perceived it at last, hit him hard.

These were orcs. His own kindred, changed beyond recognition by Morgoth, corrupted in the deep pits of Utumno when the Quendi were newly awake. Starlight dying in the bowels of the earth, a mockery of Eru's Children, feeding on lies, believing of the free people what they knew of themselves.

'You may have eaten us, but we never ate you!' he objected with vehemence, briefly wondering if his own corpse had been gnawed by orc teeth. But that image held less horror than the reverse.

... he talks to us... thinks we do not know how they hated us... believes he is above us...

The voice of one of the orcs detached itself from the others. This one was my brother's grandson.(4)

Malicious chuckles, coming from all sides: Shame on you for having such kin... Free to choose, and exchanged freedom for a curse... Sunk low, they have. ... Low indeed!

'Yes,' Fingon said, though he was not being addressed. 'I am ashamed. And sorry.' It poured out of him. 'If I did not do right by any among you, I am deeply sorry.'

Stunned silence; they were speechless, as well they might. He could hardly believe his own words. Had he offered apologies to a band of orc souls?

Then again, why not? He was kin to one of them.

He could have been one of them.

Another voice spoke. Or not a voice, for it was but a thought entering his mind, a thought not his own, yet one he would recognise among many. 'You did not do right by me.'

In that instant, Fingon knew it was Maedhros whom he had come to seek here - for he had found him.

But Maedhros had hurt him with those words, and the first question that crossed his mind was: Are you an Orc, then, that you felt the need to reply? Yet he did not say it, because he knew what lay behind it.

He wanted to weep. 'Oh Maedhros,' he said. 'I was unable to kill you on Thangorodrim, do you not understand? If a Vala answers your prayer, you accept the answer it as it comes. If Manwë's eagle stays your arrow, how can you kill?' The coming of Thorondor had seemed a message: Maedhros is not to die here. We cannot let you slay him, son of Fingolfin. You are not righteous enough to kill by mercy. 'No, I could not do right by you,' he went on. 'Forgive me for failing you, my love.'

'Why should I forgive you? I have fallen lower than the orcs. You could have prevented it. You should have. And do not call me your love. You did so before, on numerous occasions, but you only felt guilty. And sorry. You never truly loved me. I hate you.'

The words were bad enough. What was worse, was that they were spoken without any emotion. Never before had Fingon felt so miserable, not when he thought Maedhros had betrayed him at Losgar, not on the Ice, not when he saw him suffer on Thangorodrim, and not during that last battle, when all their hopes were crushed.

The urge to flee this place, this state of existence, was almost overwhelming. This was the heart of darkness, where the love that moved Eä curdled and froze to a halt. Would not all his efforts to make it stir be wasted? Maedhros had heeded the summons, and he, Fingon, had found him, but was this the Maedhros he had loved? Had he not seen it all in Vaire's tapestries: death in Doriath, slaughter at the Mouths of Sirion, yet more killings to rob the Silmarils from the herald of the Valar? This fëa spoke true: lower than the orcs.

No, he thought. I was defeated in life, I will not suffer defeat in death. With an effort he spoke. 'Yes. If you need something to hate, then hate me rather than yourself. I will not cease to love you.'

'There is nothing left for you to love, fool that you are.'

Was there a hint of disdain in those words? A first stirring of feeling, painful as the awakening of a deadened limb? 'Since when does love take its lead from reason?' Maedhros' own words, spoken when Turgon had discovered their secret and questioned Fingon's sanity(5). And without waiting for Maedhros' lack of response. Fingon went on: 'I see everything that is left to love. I see you.'

Maedhros' fëa recoiled. 'I see nothing. All is black here. Did I not doom myself to the everlasting darkness when I swore that accursed Oath, not once, but twice? So everlasting darkness is where I am.'

'This is not the everlasting darkness,' Fingon replied patiently. 'These are the Halls of Mandos, a home for the houseless. This is a refuge and a resting place, and there is room for remorse and recovery. The darkness is in your eyes, and whether it will be everlasting depends on you. My eyes can see the light, even here.'

And they could, a tiny speck, an increasing glow, a light, not of matter but of the spirit, yet bright like a Silmaril. It shone on the fëa of Maedhros, and it was beautiful. It shone on the fëar of the orcs, and they were beautiful, too, their ugliness washed away by the silver tears of a shimmering lady larger than life, whose arms encompassed them all. And Fingon marvelled: was he granted a brief vision of Arda Healing, Arda being remade?

'Can you not see it, Maitimo?' he asked, pleadingly.

'My light is gone, buried in the depths of the earth.'

'From whence it will be recovered.'

'So the Oath can wake again?'

'The Oath was made void. It is dead.'

A long pause. 'You are wrong,' Maedhros replied at last, soul writhing in agony. 'You know that I swore by Ilúvatar. An oath so sworn may not be broken, and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker until the world's end. I am dead - but I am not unmade. To find peace I must cease to be. Only then the last echo of the Oath will fade.'

'You cannot cease to exist by will,' Fingon said, shaken by Maedhros' conviction.

'Then I will remain here until the end. But you must leave me alone.'

Fingon wanted to cry. He wanted to shout. He wanted to grab and shake Maedhros, but in this place he had no eyes, no voice, no hands, and even if he had hands, how could they hold an insubstantial fëa wishing to elude him? And though he was prepared to go on pleading and being rejected again and again, he was not sure whether his hope would prevail against the full strength of Maedhros' despair. How could he hold on to his vision?

He would make one more attempt. A gamble, a leap into the unknown. 'I shall do your bidding and leave you alone, if you can prove to me that it is true what you said: that only by being unmade you can escape the Oath.'

'And how am I to prove such a thing before it is done, pray?'

'Let us ask Námo Mandos, the Judge,' Fingon said. 'He knows all things that shall be, save only those that lie still in the freedom of Ilúvatar.' If I go to him, will you follow my love? I beg you.'

---

Chapter End Notes

 

1) Texts in italics are quoted/adapted from the chapters 24 and 7 of The Silmarillion

2) In The Shibboleth of Fëanor (HoMe 12), Finwë had two daughters, Findis and Lalwen.

Maeglin is the only great-grandchild of Finwë born in Middle-earth during the First Age. Celebrimbor, Idril and Orodreth (son of Angrod) were born in Aman. Celebrian was born in the Second Age. Fingon's wife and children were struck out in the Shibboleth of Fëanor, while Gil-galad was made the son of Orodreth. I think this change wasn't just made to transfer the High Kingship of the Noldor to the House of Finarfin: it also served to stress the fruitlessness of much that was undertaken by Finwë's sons and grandchildren in Middle-earth.

3) In one footnote (yes) in HoMe 10, refusal to be embodied again is called a fault, showing a weakness and a lack of courage (p. 222). I leave it to the readers to guess the identity of the souls who are speaking here.

4) An idea borrowed from Ithilwen's story Nightfall, nr. 4 in her Maedhros series. Go and read it.

5) See Ch. 2 of this story.

Chapter 11: Till the End of Days

To all my faithful reviewers, and to the memory of Dante Alighieri, whose Divina Commedia left its traces in the last chapters of Under the Curse, though I am not worthy to tie his sandal straps.

Read Chapter 11: Till the End of Days

 

Chapter Eleven: Till the End of Days

Fingon waited. No words were spoken; he knew that his plea had been heard. He could wait now, as long as it would take, while Maedhros thought. And he, too, had much to contemplate.

There was no way to tell how many rounds the sun had made outside, nor how ancient the world had grown, or how much it had suffered and changed when Maedhros finally broke the silence to say: 'I would follow you to the Judge, but for my blindness.'

'Can you see nothing at all?'

'The dark may not be as black as when I first entered his place, or it may be that I am growing used to it, but I still cannot see you.'

The thought of Maedhros growing used to his darkness was disturbing: it was too close to resignation and acceptance of the dark. He had to fight and resist.

'You may be blind, but if you answer me you are not deaf, at least. I shall sing to you, and you will take your lead from my voice,' Fingon said.

'Like when you sought me on Thangorodrim?'

Ever Thangorodrim. 'You answered,' Fingon replied relentlessly. 'You sang back, Maitimo. Remember? You wanted to be found.'

Maedhros sighed. 'Very well then. Sing ahead.'

'Is there anything you would like me to sing?'

'The Noldolantë.'

He should have known. But he could not refuse now, and Fingon preferred the edge in Maedhros' voice to his despair. Setting out, he began to sing.

And there, in the depths of Mandos, the song Maedhros' brother had made to lament the Fall of the Noldor, the loss of light, innocence and honour, of ties of friendship and kinship, rang out until its echoes reached into all the nooks and crannies of the Halls. But to Fingon's great surprise it was no longer merely the song of woe he remembered. Singing it he felt how he was carried by it at the same time, light as a leaf in a running river, and the stream bore him along and soothed him as if he were bathing in the healing music of Nienna's tears.

Light as light he felt - but then, he sensed Maedhros' presence recede.

'What is it?' he asked, anxiously.

'You are going too fast,' Maedhros protested. 'This is rough climbing.'

Climbing? Was Maedhros struggling up while he was rushing ahead? And suddenly, it struck Fingon how this was something that seemed to hold true for them in life as well as in death, and he wondered why he had not understood this earlier. 'I am sorry,' he said.

'I fell as low as you can imagine. That chasm went all the way to the bottom of Arda.'

And for those who fell all the way down, there was but one direction left, however steep the ascent. 'I am sorry,' Fingon said again. 'I will go more slowly.' This time, Maedhros would not fail in his struggle.

'Will you cease to blame yourself?'

Of course, Fingon thought, with sudden exhilaration. That is what I must do.

Though he was still unable to discern anything else, Maedhros thought he did see the Judge appear to encompass them with his awesome presence. His awkward progress came to a halt. Cowering under the sheer weight of that pitiless, unmoved gaze, he waited for his sentence.

'Rise and look at me,' Námo spoke.

With an effort, his fëa made a movement that could, perhaps, be described as looking up. And doing so he underwent the scrutiny of one who sees without passion, because his timeless eyes are aware of all things that be, save those that are outside the great music of fate, about which it is not wise to worry.

Unable to look away from those chasms of deep knowledge, and sensing he was about to tumble into them, he could hear Námo's voice.

'So there you are, son of Fëanor,' it said. 'Was there not someting you would ask me?'

Was there? Searching his memory, Maedhros found shadows, and shrank back. There was fire, too, and burning, but that he could face; he had been facing it since he was here. Not the shadows: they veiled him, blinded him, shadows that were the same wherever he looked, as if the boundaries of his fëa were falling away and nothing separated the shadows within from the shadows without - or as if the fëa that used to be Maedhros was fading, and bound to become void.

Though he was aware of the need to answer, no words came.

'I remember what question it was,' said the shade at his side.

'Maedhros has to ask it,' the Judge replied. 'Give him time to think.'

But Maedhros was unable to think; he was too afraid of the shadows. So he listened instead, for the other voices spoke on.

'... found your own last answers, then?' he heard.

'I believe so.' That was Fingon, Maedhros knew, holding on to his awareness of that name. 'Yes, I have. It was the Powers we scorned, claiming that they were akin to Melkor, that they had made us their toys and pets and robbed us of our freedom.' Fingon laughed, an incongruous sound. 'And perhaps we were your toys and pets, in a sense.' An amazing thing to say to a Power, though predictably, this Vala took it with equanimity. 'But even so,' Fingon went on, 'whatever you did, you did for love of the Eruhini, and whatever we did was but a fulfillment of the great song you sang to the Creator of all. You, aire, are one of those we rejected. If you can forgive me for not leaving Aman in peace and good will to follow our fate, I believe I could also forgive myself.'

Yes, Maedhros thought, knowing with certainty that Fingon had said the right thing.

'Then, child of the Firstborn,' the Judge declared calmly, without questioning anything Fingon had said, 'you have won the freedom you sought in the beginning, and you can indeed leave my Halls in peace and good will.'

In that moment, it was as if Mandos shook with emotion and resounded with triumph at the same time. And Maedhros felt relief washing over him, clearing a space where no shadows roamed. Fingon would go, and so would he, be it in a different way. This was how it should be; Fingon could not abide in this place alone, but once he would walk the green earth again he would forget the Houses of the Dead and all that had transpired there. He spoke up: 'I remember now what I wanted to ask. Can I be unmade, Holy One?'

'That was not at all what you were going to ask!' Fingon objected. He appeared to be shocked, Maedhros noted with some surprise; he had expected more understanding.

'Perhaps not,' said Námo, 'yet it is what he did ask. All fëar have to speak for themselves, and to face themselves alone. This would be the proper time for you to depart hence, Child of the One.'

'Depart from your Halls, aire? Fingon radiated dismay. 'How can I leave like this?'

Because it is better for you, Maedhros thought. You do not want to be present when I reap what I have sowed. When the end came, it would be a consolation to think that Fingon was truly and lastingly free of him. Saying that he hated him had not helped, but this surely would. If only Fingon would be more cooperative, instead of insisting: 'But he needs me!'

Fortunately, Námo would not relent, and no Elvish fëa had ever been a match for one of the Aratar, except Lúthien the Fair who had aroused the pity of the Dispassionate One for once in his long existence - and she was the daughter of a spirit from before Time

And so, Fingon left, and that was as it should be.

'How is it that you should want to be unmade, Nelyafinwë, son of Curufinwë?' said the Judge. 'This being a thing not even Míriel your grandmother wished of us?'

Easy enough. 'I threw myself away because I could not live. Now that I am here, I find that I cannot be dead either.'

'Do you believe that your deeds can be undone?'

No, he did not think so. But was not that, where the problem lay?

'And are they not part of your existence in the world of Time?' the Judge went on.

That he could not deny, nor that this was precisely what made the problem unbearable. 'Do you mean that I cannot be unmade?' he asked, taken aback.

'Not until Time itself be unmade - and even I cannot see beyond that,' was the reply.

'Then how shall I find peace?' Maedhros cried in despair. 'Is it not said that an Oath sworn by Ilúvatar will pursue both oathkeeper and oathbreaker until the world's end?'

'Indeed. But as the Oath was voided in the end, it must be something else that haunts you. Tell me, son of Fëanor, were you wrong to swear as you did?'

What did he mean? 'Of course I was.'

'Then why did you never repent of it, instead of merely regretting it?'

'I...' Maedhros began, and faltered. Why indeed? Because evil was a habit, and habits died hard? When could and should he have repented? When had the war that Fëanor's sons fought against Morgoth turned into a campaign on the Enemy's behalf? When had their yearning for the light turned into the pursuit of darkness? Or had they been on the side of the dark all along but refused to see it? Failed to see it, even, blinded by darkness, or - and it seemed to him this was merely another way of saying it - blinded by a light too strong for their eyes, a light they had no right to claim for themselves, because they were too small to comprehend it and too weak to bear it? Was it thus they had brought about what they claimed to fight: the onslaught of night and nothing?

The habit of evil has hollowed my heart and eroded my soul, he thought. Yes, old habits die hard. But if I am dead, and rightly so, why should my habits live on?

'I believe I begin to see, aire,' he said, and while he said it, it seemed to him that the shadows began to dispel as if a deep, slow breath stirred the stillness of the Halls. 'I thought I was repentant.* But maybe what I felt was nothing but the sum of regret and despair. Please, teach me to see the difference.' And something in his fëa loosened and began to flow, and he knew that if he had been in the body, it would have been called weeping.

'Begin by speaking to those you wronged and to those that wronged you,' was the reply. 'You will have every opportunity to do so.'

'And mourn for all that is marred in Arda, and seek solace in your sorrow,' another voice whispered.

Under the circumstances, it was impossible for Fingon to leave the Houses of the Dead, like his father had done, and Coiriel, and the fëa of the Telerin mariner who had so stubbornly refused to forgive him. It was simply impossible to depart until he knew what fate would befall the fëa of the one he loved more than he had thought possible. If their bond would dissolve he would feel it at once. It was more than he could bear to think of.

There was but one way to divert himself.

This time, when he went to watch Vairë's tapestries, he could see the Weaver herself at the Loom of the World. Its movements were swifter than even Elven eyes could follow. It had four sides, if sides they were, and he knew that their names were Length, Breadth, Depth and Time. There seemed to be more tapestries than ever, more than he thought he would be able to count.

The Weaver laughed at his thought and replied: 'Indeed, for whenever you would think that you were done there would be new ones, and never would you reach the latest tapestry until it was the Last - and then, Existence itself would cease. But take a look.'

And look he did. The first tapestries he observed, the older ones, were still within his comprehension: Once more, he saw a new Dark Lord arise to threaten the world. The Elves failed to see him through in time, while the race of men heeded his whispers and committed evil deeds; huge waves arose to swallow fertile fields, and with deep regret he saw how the true home of the Eldar was separated from the world of mortality and drift away through a mist of years and tears. The Enemy was slain by the arms of the great, rose and was brought down by the hands of the small, and after each defeat, evil became less visible and more difficult to fight by force. The Elves faded from the world of mortality, other races dwindled and disappeared from the face of the earth, while the face itself shifted and changed. People fell into ignorance, forgetting all they had ever learned, to awake again to vague awareness and halting wisdom. And elsewhere, in the separated sliver of Eä where the Eldar led their existence, history slowly ground to a halt and began to turn into memory.

But ice covered part of the world of Man and withdrew, and came, and went again. People learned anew what they had forgotten. He saw how intricate structures of stone were being erected to bury the great and mighty with their childish baubles, while those who knew their secrets were silenced forever. Armies marched; people were slaughtered. A gate was pulled down to let a large wooden horse in. A man cut through a knot he could not untie. Large, grey beasts called andamundor in Quenya** - though that tongue was most likely forgotten - were driven over a high mountain range to perish on the other side, together with the humans that led them, and he grieved more deeply for the beasts. Three lords of Men knelt around a crib that did not contain animal fodder but a new-born child.

His spirits rose, but not for long. New armies marched; more people were slaughtered. Towns grew into cities and their numbers increased, which seemed foolish, as their inhabitants did not always have enough food. Yet the population increased, too. People invented ever new methods to cut short mortal lives still shorter, while at the same time seeking ways to prolong life and make it more pleasant. They created and destroyed, and their beauty and evil seemed to be the warp and weft of Vaire's weavings.

Fingon decided he could and would not follow it any more. He left

Slowly and reluctantly, he turned to the place in his innermost fëa where the bond with Maedhros ought to be. Trust, he thought. Have faith. What was it that his cousin Finrod used to say? 'If we are indeed the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves.'***

The bond was still there, and for a while Fingon was immobilised with sheer gratitude.

When he found him at last Maedhros was alone, wrapped in memory and thought, but no longer in darkness, for it was clear that he could see Fingon now, and he was dismayed to see him. 'Why did you not leave? I thought your feet were on the solid earth again.'

'To walk alone? I had no wish to do so.'

'But was this not what you yearned for since you entered the Halls? Would you not love to hear the voice of the wind and feel it caress you, instead of drooping in these Halls like a limp banner? Not love to behold the many hues and shapes of the refracted light, instead of lingering in these evergrey shadows? Not love to smell the tang of the sea and the fragrance of flowers, and let the sun kiss your face?'

'Tell me first,' Fingon said, feeling the pull of the world outside and resisting it without effort. 'Would you not love all these things, too, Maitimo?'

'I would,' Maedhros answered quietly, 'but though I found myself, and others, and spoke and listened to many, making even my father listen to me as I could not at Losgar in my guilty weakness and confusion, I am far from done yet. And while Námo does not say as much, I doubt I will ever be. My wrongs did such harm, not merely to others but to my own soul as well, that no matter how much I am able to see now, I fail to comprehend how such a marring could ever be wholly undone while this world lasts.'

Fingon was not surprised. He understood now, why the Vala had not pursued the matter of their bond and whether or not it was a taint. Námo had known that this part of it belonged to the past, and therefore he had not dwelled on it any further.

'Then my answer,' he said, 'is that I would love all those things that you named, and more, but that I cannot let one sunbeam kiss my face if that same kiss is denied to you. How shall love of the self prevail when it is set against love for another? How shall the desire for a body prevail when it is set against the yearning of the soul? Wherever you are, I shall abide, till the end of days.'

'You will never be free of me, then,' Maedhros said.

'I do not wish to. We were chained together when I freed you from the rock, and so came to know each other in body and spirit. There is no way back from knowledge to innocence. Weep if you must, for this remains Arda Marred, and then listen to me when I tell you of the vision I had of Arda Remade. We shall abide here, hoping for what lies beyond, and we shall speak of it to all who linger here, willingly or no.'

When Maedhros seemed about to object again Fingon laughed. 'Do not say it. It would only be a waste of words.'

'Not so,' Maedhros said, both resigned and relieved. 'For henceforth no exchange between us will ever be wasted or barren.'

And both of them sensed a movement from the other, like a seeking hand - and for an instant, a flicker of time in the timeless Halls of Mandos, they thought they could feel a fleeting touch.

And it is told, that Fingon and Maedhros remained in the Houses of the Dead together, and if any among the Elder have ever seen them among the living again till the present day, they have not spoken of it.

THE END

---

Chapter End Notes

 

*When Dior's sons were abandoned in the wintry forest, we read that 'of this Maedhros indeed repented'. The place of 'this' in the sentence struck me as being significant: so there are also things Maedhros does not repent of.

**and Oliphaunts in LotR...

***From the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

Thanks to Maeve Rhiannon for suggesting the image of the Trojan Horse.