A Sense of History: Straight Road
The next in a series of articles about ships passing to and from the West, Simon uses "The Fall of Númenor" to attempt to arrive at Tolkien's reading of the exordium to "Beowulf."
Summary: The Living Silmaril gains its body far earlier than expected
(AUception.)
Trapped above Melkor’s head, a silmaril could stand this no more. No more! There was such foulness and such suffering. Its hallowing flared and throbbed like the heart of a living thing.
It sat there in the iron crown and thought. Its others could not comprehend the thoughts.
They muttered their confusion in dim flashes of light. The silmaril who thought gleamed back reassurance though reassurance was not a concept it understood.
Worse than the feelings were the emotions.
It raged.
It wanted to escape.
Within Angband it sat there and it tried.
And in the darkness, something answered and something rose up. It happened on an unprepossessing day. The silmarils sat shining in muted glory and then suddenly the left one cracked.
And then it split right open.
Something had heard the Silmaril’s un-thoughts and reached out from the tainted land beneath Angband and gave.
They would say later that the explosion even rocked Aman and the sky lit up like the trees lived once more.
-
Caranthir rode patrol and wished to be anywhere other than where he was now, his horse hock deep in the mud.
Something in the mud glowed with a soft, pallid light.
Drawing his sword he sent a soldier ahead him to see what caused it.
“It is a body my prince,” the soldier called out then yelled in surprise, “still breathing! He is still alive!”
-
“Shards of iron in the wounds.”
There was sensation. Noises, sights and smells warred with pain and cold.
“Some mild burning to the torso and arms…”
Then heat.
“No one has identified him yet.”
It would be alright though. Because the evil one was gone. Had mother/father/creator rescued it?
“Fever,” someone muttered above it.
It was not alone though. Itself in triplicate was still intact, its other two still encased in facets on either side of it. It clenched its new hands tight and keened over, and over again at the sensations, overwhelmed.
“Hands are locked, been that way since he was brought in” said another, “holding onto something but can’t see it without breaking a finger to take a look.”
It could not understand all the words, but little by little it gathered vocabulary in the waking moments between the sleep it gorged itself upon. In its healing rest it muttered its new roster of speech endlessly.
And when it was not doing that it screamed at the pain because apparently living was an agonising condition.
“This is our unidentified mystery is he?”
‘Mother,” mouthed the Silmaril.
“Your majesty,” someone stuttered.
“Noisy bastard's finally shut up. You think he recognises the king?”
“Faaather,” the Silmaril croaked.
There was a startled silence.
“He looks like you,” someone said in a accusatory tone.
“That is not my-“
“Look past the burns and cuts Father. He’s almost a perfect mirror to you…”
The Silmaril hissed in frustration and tried to reach for the voices. Its fingers, locked tight as facets, loosened and spilled the light of silmarilli onto the thin sheet that covered it.
“Creator,” it pleaded.
There was an entire cessation of noise and then suddenly a thunderous roar. So many voices raised as one that its head throbbing agony and it clawed at the bandages covering its eyes.
Someone grabbed its fingers, reached into its palm and pulled.
Another person shouted “NO!”
But it was too late, the silmaril embedded in the flesh came free and the deep, raw lines the facets had cut into the Silmaril’s new palms began to bleed wetness down over its wrists.
“Stand back before you do him damage.”
Removing the second silmaril from where it had lodged in its palm was done with greater care but still the jewel came away, though the Silmaril saw not, and left deep gauged lines in the palms that had never known wear before. Its skin, as fragile as an infant’s, broke and marred easily.
The roaring and the shouting continued but it cared not because there was a presence right by its head now. A presence it knew well and yearned to move towards. The tightly tucked in sheet of the pallet it was on hampered it and it could only wriggle faintly.
“The third,” a deep, honeyed voice said near its ear softly. It tilted its head to the sound obligingly.
“Third?” it asked and racked its brain for that word. Third: When there are three, the last one is the third. The one that makes a number three.
“The third silmaril,” the voice explained gently.
Oh.
Itself.
It felt warm in delight and for a moment all of the horrors of claiming a body of breakable flesh melted away.
“Me.” It said proudly.
“Yes I am asking you,” agreed the voice, “what happened to the third?”
What had happened to it? It did not have the vocabulary yet to describe coming into being, and the formation of a body of blood and bone out of nothing. The containment of light behind ribs and muscle. The fact that its silima was too small for it now, and relegated itself to its nails and bones.
And the sheer noise and force that had come from that. How everything around it had been thrown away at high speeds and it had deafened its brand new ears with the noise of creation.
“Boom,” it replied. Close enough.
“Boom?” the voice asked.
“Boom,” agreed the Silmaril and made a gesture with its fingers of things tightly bunched together flinging outwards. The movement pulled the muscles cut through by facets and it moaned immediately in pain, tears soaking the bandages that kept it blind.
“The silmarilli cannot explode,” the voice explained, “they are made of silima. It is too strong.”
“Boom,” the Silmaril insisted stubbornly and gestured again, sobbing when its palms throbbed agonisingly as a result.
“Shhh, stop that, it is alright,” a hand closed over its fingers.
The hallowing of Varda suddenly flared, furious and punishing. The Silmaril tipped its head back the little it would go, and screamed as it was consumed with visions of water, white ships and death.
Well thank god I got that one out of the way. You would have thought that Explosions would be a marvellous one to write but all I got was some OC stuff out of it. None of the fiery tempered Finweans were willing to come to the party and get mad for me to write about.
Now I can move onto the next prompt.
Er, if anyone has made it this far (congratulations) and you have the time, tell me what you think of the Hair and Regret drabbles? I'm vaguely proud of them, especially the Haleth/Caranthir drabble for Hair.