The Conjurer by Iavalir

Chapter 1

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“Why have you done this to yourself, my son?” asked a voice soft and melodic, a voice of his past unmarred by the horrors which he had seen. The memories which poured with the sweet tone of her voice brought him back to a world of comfort and bliss, of being embraced in large arms when he was small and vulnerable yet protected and loved.

“For what reason did you fall in madness?” another voice reached him, lower in tone and vaguely hoarse, yet comforting in its own way.

Maglor sighed. “I had to. I needed to. To see you both and my brothers again.”

“No kin of yours would wish to see you in such state, Makalaurë our son.”

“As how?” Maglor whispered. “I am perfectly well. Do you not see? I am as I was since the end of the First Age. I have since learned to bring you here, back to me. I am the conjurer, mother and father. I brought you here.”

He gave them a smile, unaware of the physician who received the smile instead, her eyes gleaming sadly at the sight of the dilapidated patient before her. No words of the modern spoken tongue left his lips, for no new language he had learned since the end of the First Age.

Ever since casting away the Silmaril into the sea he had kept himself far from the rest of the world in his grief and shame. In time, elven souls would have overcome their bodies save to only those whom they shown themselves; and despite his self-imposed isolation Maglor wished not to disappear from the eyes of the world. Becoming forgotten would have been unbearable in his crushing loneliness. He sought to be seen, even in the rags which kept him from shivering nude on the streets: a pathetic sight, yet still alive.

The thought that he could make visible once more the family which was torn from him never did cross his mind till one event during the Seventh Age. A particular potent hallucinogen infiltrated the society of Men at this time. It was by complete accident that he first encountered it. While sitting in an alley, observing the lucky ones who got to enjoy their meals in the restaurant across the street, Maglor’s attention was suddenly stolen by a man approaching him, greeting him in a human language and offering up a confusing hand gesture. Like Maglor, the man appeared much like him with long flowing hair and baggy clothes.

A sugar cube was offered to Maglor.

Maglor placed the sugar cube in his mouth, and it was to find that the sweet had opened windows he had not known were there before, locked and shielded away from his eyes. This blessing of a drug could make him see things which his eyes could not. In those days he spent searching for his family in run down homes, surrounded by humans, their bodies entangled and caught in their own living dreams. He never joined them, but searched, letting the effect of this miracle guide him through valleys of rhythmic bright hues of melodies and green, and kaleidoscopic songs which he could taste with the tip of his tongue.

In those days Maglor laughed and his heart was joyous, welcoming the changes in the world about him with delight and eagerness for the promise of showing him his family. But in the years that followed the drug which he so cherished was no longer readily available, confiscated by a cold bureaucracy bent on blocking him from ever seeing the faces of his loved ones. He sought other substances, but seldom did any give him visions. Instead, only intense euphoria followed administration, and in their absence Maglor found himself yearning for their effects once more. No drug he shied from, eager to test the effects of each substance to find another suitable substitute for his friend of the past. There were some which came close with their synesthesia, but instead of bright visions of his old home on Tírion, he was thrown into deep hells where massive fiery centipedes crawled over his body and gnawed at his skull.

Yet despite that, the years blurred by with his unrelenting thirst of seeing his family once more. No longer was he the mighty prince of old whose golden voice could render all who heard him into tears. Now his haggard and emaciated frame, weakened by his previous convulsions, brought tears to the medics as they tended to him each time he was admitted to the hospital, and they whispered of what a shame that a handsome young man such as he would waste away, falling victim to addiction.

But Maglor was not at all bothered by what he had done to his own body, meant to be ever young and ever strong. His experiments were going so well despite the constant visits to this place (and such a nuisance they were!) He had perfected the combination that he would use to conjure his family back, vivid before his eyes; though each consecutive concoction required more of such substance lest the effects didn’t last as long. More difficult also became acquiring the substances. Long had it been since he sold his ring, a family heirloom, to pay the ones who brought him his bliss. He scavenged the streets for money and begged the passersby, and oftentimes found himself an unwilling participant to acts which lent him more money.

Yet in vain it had not been.

“I have brought you here,” Maglor said, smiling weakly to his mother. “My brothers will soon be here, will they not? I do miss speaking with them all.”

“My son, each of your brothers are in the Halls of Mandos,” Nerdanel said. “And you may find yourself slipping into there if you continue to harm your body.”

Maglor kept smiling, oblivious to the concerned looks of the physicians and nurses as they observed his peculiar behavior. “Then this means I will soon enter the Halls as well. I will return to you and we will be a family once more.”

“But was this all worth it, my child?” Fëanor asked again as Maglor felt a needle slide into his arm. “Was it worth all this pain you have inflicted on yourself?” His father’s voice drowned suddenly by the gentle, low voice of the physician tending to him.

“If I could see you just once more,” Maglor said faintly, fighting the fatigue that had suddenly took hold of him. He looked to his family as they began slipping from his view, “then it was worth all my efforts, for this one time to finally see you again.” His eyes fluttered closed, and the vision of his family vanished.

“That’s it, son, you’re doing well,” spoke the physician, frowning slightly at her patient. There was no language which they could recognize, no means to communicate with him, help him of his debilitating illness.

She turned to her team. “He is losing consciousness…administer the naltrexone.”