The Forging of the Ring by Uvatha the Horseman

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March 24 – The Redesign

Sauron panics and completely reworks his original design.

March 24 The Redesign

There was no reason not to go ahead with the Forging today.

He spent almost ten years developing the design, which was based upon a hundred years of thinking and planning. He reviewed his design countless times, and knew it was sound. He cleaned up the procedures and led the team through a rehearsal. He slept well. At least, he did when at last he put down his pen and went back to bed. Everyone knew their part, and all the glitches had been ironed out. They were ready to go.

Except … he knew he could make the design better.

There was nothing wrong with his original design. It was plain and serviceable, and it got the job done, like a header beam over a door. But as of last night, he knew how to make an arch. Both structures can carry the weight, but an arch is stronger and more graceful.

At breakfast, he told his people he was going to push it back by one day. There was grumbling about the delay, but he ignored it.

He spent the rest of the day filling page after page in his notebook. He drew a schematic of the original design on the left and the new design on the right. Then he highlighted all the components affected by his new knowledge. The new design was like the original, only with fewer parts. This could work.

He finished the redesign in late afternoon. When it was done, he reworked the procedures. He unrolled the master scroll on the table and weighted the corners down to hold it open. He found a blank scroll the same size, then dipped a quill in ink and wrote out the new procedures. The new procedure was like the old one, only with steps omitted.

When he was finished, he found blank sheets of parchment and rewrote all the scripts, turning the pages long-ways so there was no chance of getting the two sets of scripts mixed up.

When he finished, he sent a servant to summon his craftsmen. When they were assembled, he showed them the scroll and pointed out the changes. He told them nothing about how monumentally important those changes were.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He sat around the fire with the others, waiting for the cook to serve the evening meal. He slumped against a saddle with his notebook balanced on his knee. His eyes were closed.

He was thinking about the rehearsal they'd run on the second day. The dry run tested the procedures, but told him nothing about the soundness of the design. He would have to review it himself. The trouble was, he had been working on it so long, he saw what was in his mind, not what was on the paper in front of him.

He needed another set of eyes. He called his Chief Assistant over.

"Have a look at this. Read it out loud, and describe what you see." he said, opening the book to the start of the pages detailing the new design. His Assistant turned over a few pages, frowning.

"I don't recognize any of these symbols." he said.

The symbols were used in the formulas to write down spells. They would have been familiar to any sorcerer, although his Ringmaking spells were more complex than most. He should have realized that, for someone unschooled in sorcery, his notes were impossible to read.

"Then I'll narrate, and you repeat back to me what you heard." Mairon said.

He took the notebook back and read aloud from it. He described the design in layman's terms, while making an effort to explain it as completely as possible. When he came to the last page, he looked up.

"I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you just said." His Chief Assistant shrugged.

Mairon closed the notebook. This wasn't a job for a layman. The review could only be done by a trained sorcerer, or better yet, by two or three sorcerers competing with each other to find flaws. If he sent a messenger to Lugbúrz, the best sorcerers in Mordor could be here in two or three days. But he'd excluded them for a reason. He didn't want anyone other than himself to know how to make the Ring.

Mairon sighed. He would have to do the final review himself.

-o-o-o-o-o-

That night, he lay awake, thinking. The new design was a good one. It was his best effort yet.

Except … He wasn't sure if he should attempt it tomorrow.

The new design was only a day old. He'd written out a clean copy of the procedure, and made scripts for all the participants, but he hadn't double checked them. The difference between the two designs was aesthetic more than anything else, so there wasn't any real reason to choose the new one, except that he liked it better. He would sleep on it and decide in the morning.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He was back in the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, where a statue of Celebrimbor wielding a jeweler's hammer guarded the main entrance. It was dark inside. The forge was roaring.

"Watch the color. It's the best way to gage the temperature of the piece. Careful, don't let it cool too quickly." he heard himself saying.

Celebrimbor was forging one of the Great Rings. Mairon stood at his elbow, giving advice and encouragement. Celebrimbor did the hands on work while he gave instructions and cast the more difficult spells. He was proud of how far Celebrimbor had come under his tutelage.

Then Celebrimbor stepped away from the anvil during an important part of the forging. Mairon, who understood everything there was to know about making Rings, picked up the tongs and took over. But when he swung the hammer, he struck too hard and damaged the piece. He managed to repair it, but now it looked lopsided, amateurish, the work of a new apprentice, not a master craftsman.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He woke with a start, in his tent on the slopes of Orodruin.

What if Celebrimbor was the real maker of the Rings of Power, and he had just been watching? He never made a Great Ring by himself, not from start to finish. He wasn't even sure he could.

Mairon never considered the possibility that Celebrimbor might be a better craftsman than he was. Celebrimbor was mortal and Mairon was divine, great among the people of Aulë the Smith[1]. But the Elven smiths could do things the Valar couldn't. Fëanor, the most skilled among them, made the Silmarils[2] and the Palantiri[3], which even Aulë couldn't have done.

Celebrimbor was Fëanor's grandson, and he had inherited his grandfather's talent. Somehow Mairon hadn't noticed at first perhaps because Celebrimbor was a peacemaker, good-natured and compassionate. He was nothing like his fiery ancestor. Mairon never met Fëanor, but Melkor had. After a screaming confrontation with Fëanor over the Silmarils, Melkor had backed away, saying, "That is one bat-crap crazy Elf." [4]

Mairon had apprenticed under Aulë, but he was not Aulë himself, not even close. The meaning sunk in and his stomach lurched. He came to the Gwaith-i-Mírdain as a teacher, yet he had learned so much from the Elves. He was just too arrogant to appreciate it.

He was attempting more than he could handle. He should make another Great Ring first, to prove to himself he could do it, and then he would make the One. It was a good plan that wouldn't cost him any of his own power, just a few years of his time.

Except that the three Elven Rings were out there, and he had to get them back. There wasn't time for caution.

No more excuses. At first light tomorrow, he would enter the Sammath Naur and forge the Ruling Ring.

Chapter End Notes

[1] the god Hephaestus

[2] the Great Jewels, one of which survives as "Elendil, our most beloved star" (Venus)

[3] the Seeing Stones

[4] from the excellent fanfic, "Sauron's Blog"

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