Of Draugluin by Huinare

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Utumno

Catching Sauron's notice could only be a good thing, right?

I first saw Mairon take such a form as this and it seemed well to me, fearsome but not horrendous.  Too many of the Raucar thought it was clever of them to look fiery or spiky or decaying or some other nonsense.  Mairon always had better taste.  He was hardly a person I could hope to emulate in most things, mastering any task he set his mind to.  I was never much of anything, skulking at the very edge of Melkor’s inner circle.  But that form I did take to and I wore it a fair amount, letting blood Yavanna’s pitiful creatures in the woods of the north, or patrolling the corridors of Utumno with a small click of claws on the cold stone.

Eventually it got me noticed.  I would have thought that was what I wanted.

Lord Mairon was visiting from the new place they’d recently finished delving further west.  He had been out there overseeing the construction for years, but he returned often to stay in Utumno for some days.  Now that the thing was officially built, he was taking command of it, and there was to be a celebration to mark the occasion in Melkor’s hall.  Everyone looked forward to that.  Utumno’s parties were excellent.  There was always decent music, so different from the tempoless blather of Almaren and Valinor, and blood on the stones.

I was making my final rounds, checking that the sentries and guards were all still in place in the upper southwest quadrant and warning them again that parties didn’t mean we left our doors or dungeons unguarded.  I was in this form then, prowling along the corridors and enjoying growling at the guards who dared look sullen.  The last thing I expected was to round a corner into a deserted hallway and nearly run headlong into Mairon.  He was in lupine form also, a form larger and more fierce than mine though I myself made lesser Raucar cringe.  I was embarrassed and I hunched down with my ears and tail tucked. 

“Don’t do that, Draugluin.  I did not seek you out because I was displeased with you.  Here, walk with me.”

We paced down the empty corridor.  Mairon asked idle, polite questions concerning my health and goings-on about the fortress, glancing over sometimes with coppery gold eyes.  He got round to asking after Ancalagon, who had been my friend since before the Music. 

Ancalagon was never much for words, but the words that did leave his mouth were always smart and usually violent.  Last celebration, he had done something creative involving a lava basin and one of those pointy-eared Eru-whelps.  We’d laughed over it between ourselves and wondered what the fools would say in Valinor if they knew we already had hold of those pretty people and were making them less pretty.  I was also somewhat jealous of Ancalagon, and somewhat pitied him, because he had volunteered himself for an experiment of Melkor’s.  There was a lot of prestige involved with that, but discomfort and probably fear too.  Ancalagon’s humanlike form was gradually getting longer and leaner, its skin darker and more calloused.  He was now growing bigger, but when it first started it had seemed like he was growing smaller, starving down to ribs and a long knobby spine.  It had taken years for that look of weakness to become one of sinew and strength.  Lately his neck and jaw especially were getting longer, and his teeth were pointy.  He walked a little odd and sometimes skittered a short ways on all fours when he thought I wasn’t looking.

I wasn’t sure how to answer questions about Ancalagon.  “Sir, I think he is well.  Everyone respects his sacrifice in service to Lord Melkor.”

“Ah.  Why do you perceive it thus?  As a sacrifice?”

I stammered stupidly until I got a sentence out.  “It doesn’t look very pleasant, is all I mean.  I think he has been in some discomfort.  He would never say so though, he is long-suffering.”

“If he said so, it would change nothing,” Lord Mairon pointed out in a calm, friendly way.  “But we do not see yet the whole picture.  Your friend is nowhere near the end of his metamorphosis.  By the time it is complete, he shall be immensely powerful, more so than all the Valaraucar combined.  Some inconvenience now shall work to his benefit and honor in days to come.”

I never saw until much later that he was stoking my jealousy, the better to consume the fodder he laid out.

He came to a stop, and I could do nothing but stop also.  “Draugluin–”  He cut himself short there, as if he’d thought better of it.

I was afraid for some reason, but also intrigued.  I had to fight to keep the fur along my back smooth.  “My lord?”

“There’s been a particular notion in my mind for some time now, involving wolves.  You and I both know the wolf is almost ideal, as far as creatures fashioned by Aulë’s insipid wife go: It is strong, and cunning, and swift, and noble yet also fearful in its seeming.”  Lord Mairon paused to let it sink in that he was putting me and himself in the same category, that of people who had enough sense to truly appreciate the lupine animal.  He saw that I saw this, and he kept on, “I believe that, for our purposes, the only possible improvement we could make upon Yavanna’s model would be to instill it with a sentience.”

His words had outrun me.  I looked at him helplessly for a moment before he tried again, “I mean to say, wolves could be of much use to us if we could give them consciousness and self-awareness, such as the so-called Eruhíni have.”

“Certainly, sir, but–”

“But they say it’s impossible, yes.  I believe that is a lie, Draugluin, forged by Eru and propounded by Manwë and his thralls, in order to keep us from gaining in power and knowledge.  They are dull fools, yet who among them would willingly sit by and let us add intelligence and will to the efficiency and ferocity of a pack of wolves?”

Mairon’s eyes were alight with his pride and his grudge against Aman now.  He came a few steps closer to me, still speaking.  “I am devising a way.  This is why I wished to have conference with you, for of all the Raucar in Utumno you seem to appreciate the lupine guise most, and to become it best.  I would need the aid of one with these qualities, one of resolve who would not shrink from honor and duty.”

When he explained it to me I was uneasy and rather disgusted, even though I didn’t fully grasp the ideas and words he used.  I tried humbly to back away from him and his plots, saying something about how I didn’t think I was fit for such an important task.  I’d always thought that I would be pleased if Mairon paid me more than a passing word or glance, but now I felt more like a wounded prey in the sight of a seasoned hunter.  He leaned out and put his muzzle to my shoulder to stop me backing up and said, “No, you are suited fine to the task, you just don’t wish to do it.  I could not compel you to such an undertaking.”

By which he meant, he would not.  Or possibly, that he would not at that point in time.  He allowed me to excuse myself but I knew the issue wasn’t laid to rest.  I wished it was and tried to pretend it was.  But the next couple times Mairon was in Utumno, he found some place and excuse to bring it up again, each time speaking at more length and coming nearer to me until his breath was all but in my eyes. 

The fourth time, he took me out hunting.  Comings and goings from Utumno were strictly metered and I didn’t get out as often as I’d have liked, so I couldn’t help but be grateful.  The air was many-scented and the scrubby trees were rustling with things of marrow and blood.  Mairon had taken us out one of the north gates, at the very fringe of the scrub, and then we were out upon the plains of snow.  We cut a reindeer off from the rest of its herd, racing it to its death, no stones or trees standing in the path.  When I stuck my muzzle into the steaming body cavity I was practically giddy with bloody exhilaration.  I forgot that Mairon had his own reasons for granting me this freedom and was only glad to have the honor of sharing a kill with him alone.  The black of his pelt, which ran atop his form from nose to tail, seemed to defy the nosy stars of Varda that pierced all the other darkness round us, and the silver on his flanks and underside gleamed a bit as if it had stolen something from the stars.   

When I flopped down on the snow, gorged to clumsiness, Mairon sat next to me with more dignity.  As wolves will do, he started grooming me companionably.  That caught me off guard and I had no idea whether to be pleased or afraid.  “Draugluin, I never see you more at your ease or in your element than when you occupy this wolf’s guise, and never more than when you are doing as wolves do.  Are you not glad to run in the crisp air, and kill, and eat raw that which you kill?”

“Yes, I thank you, Lord Mairon,” I muttered.

“I ask no more of you than to be what you already joy most in being.”  He took the opportunity to pick at some bur or mat in my ruff, bringing his teeth much too near my throat in the process.

I flinched and brought my chin down, pretending it was all part of turning my head to look him full in the face.  “But–without cease, my lord?”

Mairon stopped and returned my stare.  “You called your colleague Ancalagon’s decision a sacrifice.  If you must think on it in those terms, yes, that would be the sacrifice exacted, but the benefit reaped would be much honor and power and freedom.  As I have told you, I’m reasonably confident in my devices and want only your assistance.  You shall have in Angband much more influence and ease than you are granted here, and with very good cause: you’d have earned it by your duty, which would entail certain inconveniences.  Yet you would be the fount of a completely new race, one that shall confound the Eruhíni and grieve the Ainur.”

“But–all mortal?”

“Indeed, even as wolves are now, though longer of life.  Would you have them be immortal, Draugluin?  Creatures which breed and multiply and eventually become too many for their prey?  If they knew no death, they would in time kill all the reindeer here, all the antelope and horses, and all else they could consume.  The prey would not have time to replenish itself.  What then?  Surely you would not wish mass starvation and misery for a creature you honor.”

I thought I still had an objection.  I felt it in my stomach.  But I could not figure out what it was, for Mairon’s words went quickly and deftly like small game running across its own snowtracks.  So I only shook my head, of course I would not wish the outcome he’d spoken of.

“I realize I ask much of you, Draugluin.  If I thought you a weakling or a dullard, I should not have taken the time to debate–yea, nearly to plead with you.  I should simply have demanded it of you.  Yet you are not one of the lesser Raucar, to be thus trifled with.  I ask much in accordance with the potential you possess.  I expect that one with such potential might be willing to experience some fear or discomfort for the sake of his own advancement, or am I mistaken?”

I thought first that I was being flattered, then that I was being sneered at.  I blinked at Mairon and tried to get a hold on my confusion.  “And if I did this, sir, there can be no undoing it?”

“I doubt it.  It’s safe to assume no.”  He casually started biting at the bur in my ruff again, not as aggressively this time. 

Maybe it was the promise of more influence and power in Angband.  After all, I knew I’d never advance any further than I already had at Utumno.  I had not the might nor wit to come close to those nearest in Melkor’s counsels.  Maybe it was fear of Mairon, though he’d never threatened me openly, or, more than that, a wish to please him.  Maybe it was a wish to prove that I was as resolved and bold as Ancalagon, who I would now be sundered from.  Whatever fills that ‘maybe’ is only hateful, now.

I was given a few days to wrap up my business in Utumno.  I changed one form for another often then, in a hurry, like someone trying to decide what to wear to a gala.  I liked them all.  But the game was pointless, for I knew the outcome already.  I think I was trying on the one side to gain memories of them to hold fast in my jaws, and on the other side I was trying to show myself that none of them were all that decent anyway.

I stood with my old friend in a human shape, for the last time.  “Just tell me once and I shan’t repeat it beyond my hearing, Ancalagon.  Does it hurt?”

Ancalagon looked down his long nose at me.  His slit pupils went narrow.  “Of course,” he said without any feeling, and never spoke of it again.

Chapter End Notes

Raucar: Probably a self-explanatory term to those familiar with the the word 'Valarauca.'  I prefer to use this term for Melkor's folk and envision them as using it for themselves (reclaiming it from disgruntled Valar who coined it as a slur), though I recently read Tolkien named them Umaiar.

I'm aware that this contains a hetergenous mix of Quenya and Sindarin names, which I don't have the werewithal to redemy at present.

 

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