Chasing Mirages by Russandol

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Mandos

Eönwë faces the Doomsman of the Valar.

This chapter fits a prompt of B2MeM 2011.

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20. Mandos

For a brief instant I believed I was free. But as soon as I turned my attention away from the scene below, I found myself inside a swarm of unclad Maiar, the grim servants of Námo.

‘You let them die!’ I cried bitterly, seething with fury at the trap they had sprung using Children as pawns. But my pitiless brethren did not heed my cries.

I immediately abandoned any hope of escape. Even if Námo’s Maiar had not spun a confinement web around me, which I would never be strong enough to breach unaided, they were too many to outrun. I was commanded to follow my captors. Powerless and angry, I obeyed, still dazzled by the regained richness of my perception. And yet, something felt wrong.

While I was rushed to their lord’s abode in Mandos, I discovered the source of my unease. Somehow, my sense of Time was distorted, so that our journey might be lasting an instant, a day or a year, but I had no way of gauging its duration. Being deprived of the immutable, reassuring reference that anchored me to Eä disturbed me deeply. No doubt this severe disorientation was deliberate. Had I still been locked inside a hröa, I would have shivered when we crossed the threshold of Námo’s residence.

I had been in the main audience chamber of Mandos before, but only this time did I perceive it as the Children would: forbidding in its impossible vastness, bleak in the nakedness of polished jet stone, alien in the complete lack of adornment or furnishings except for a large chair upon a high dais. Námo sat on this imposing throne, clad in his fana, even though on this occasion no Quendi were witnesses to his presence.

At his signal, his servants released me, but they remained hovering all around and above me. A humming shield surrounded us, cast to protect privacy, as it barred both sound and ósanwë.

Out of prescribed courtesy, I also took visible shape in my now unfamiliar fana, luminous, wispy and unfeeling, a poor reflection of what it sought to imitate. I bowed shallowly. Against protocol, I spoke first.

‘You have slain innocents to bring me here as a miscreant. Why, Námo?’

A ripple of his thought brushed the edge of my consciousness, but I declined to return an acknowledgement, or to open my mind. Ósanwë might reveal too much.

‘Your Lord summoned you, Eönwë. You refused his command,’ spoke the Lord of Mandos, abandoning mental contact.

‘Where is he, then? I do not answer to you.’

I was being insolent, but Manwë’s absence disturbed me. Without him, I feared that Námo’s implacable wrath would fall on me undiminished.

‘As you may recall, the High King often bids me mete out both judgement and punishment. Until you have completed your sentence, he has placed you in my care.’

I sensed his barely disguised glee; in turn, my dismay deepened. Manwë had forsaken me, despite his promise at the Máhanaxar. I was on my own, but I would not be cowed. Attack seemed like the best sort of defence.

‘I did not breach the terms of my banishment. You stirred hatred amongst the Children and they raised swords against each other. Why, then, have you resorted to manipulation and slaughter to lure me into this trap?’

‘Their deaths are regrettable, and yet losses can never be avoided in war.’ There was no hint of regret or sadness in his deep voice.

‘War? We had peace until your meddling and Irmo’s incited hatred, without cause!’ I wished to remain calm, but his coldness made my fury boil all the hotter.

‘There will always be war, Eönwë, against those who nurture evil. Many servants of Melkor are still abroad, and Sauron is the most powerful amongst them.’

‘You are wrong! Mairon...’

‘We shall discuss Melkor’s cur later,’ he thundered. His anger throbbed bright and echoed within me in a tingling wave, a stern reminder of whom I faced. ‘My task was to extricate you from his clutches, to protect you from harm, before he wholly swayed you into darkness.’

‘So you had me killed. A subtle way to protect me, indeed,’ I retorted.

Another lashing pulse hit me, brief but more stinging, although still barely under my pain threshold. My rage had made me fearless, but not stupid, and I refrained from speaking further.

‘I shall not tolerate any more of your insolence, Eönwë. I am extremely tempted to remind you of the respect you owe your betters by granting you a few yéni of uninterrupted solitude to reflect on your duties. That would seem the wisest course of action, had your Lord not forbidden me from it.’

His tone had lost all pretence of kindness, or even politeness. He was a judge and a gaoler, cold and unyielding. I remained silent.

‘Why did you ignore your Lord’s summons?’

‘Was I not allowed to rule my own life within the boundaries you had imposed?’ I answered, biting back my defiance. ‘My bond to Manwë was forged from kinship and affection, but he was rather swift to flick all of my tireless service aside and dismiss me in disgrace, so as to not lose face with the Noldor. I never questioned him at the time, but three yéni of banishment have opened my eyes. Lintavailë’s words bore no hint of pardon or welcome, of being loved or wanted; they were a demand issued to a servant. Why would I willingly return to be humiliated even further?’

‘Three yéni opened your eyes, you say,’ he repeated, and smiled without joy. ‘Sauron has all but wrapped you around his little finger, poisoned your mind against your kin, and you are blind to his deception.’

‘Those are lies!’ I cried, forgoing caution. My voice echoed loudly against the bare walls of the hall. I braced myself for pain, but it never came.

‘Show me, then,’ Námo invited. ‘Open your mind; let me confirm that your claim is the truth.’

For a moment, I wavered.

‘No,’ I answered firmly. ‘You have wrought twisted visions and bid Irmo send them as foresight, to plant dreams of hate against us in the minds of the Atani. Now you would warp my memories and exploit my weaknesses to support your own version of truth. When you choose not to trust my word and my lord will not deign to see me, I can only regret that my loyalty has earned me so little love.’

‘How can I trust you, Eönwë, when you have all but given our foe your allegiance?’

‘I have not,’ I replied, angrily. His disdainful tone made me regret not having done so. ‘But you are mistaken about him, he is not a threat.’

Námo raised his eyebrows. Mairon had been right, I was not believed.

‘He is no longer evil,’ I insisted, when Námo did not contradict me. ‘When I let him go after the War, I gave him a chance to repent, and he has taken it.’

‘That chance never existed, Eönwë. He is marred beyond hope, twisted by darkness. The bonds that Melkor wrought are too strong for him to break, not even with your ill-advised support. I have foreseen his fall, as I saw his master’s. Have you so easily forgotten what befell Aman the last time we let a fiend walk unguarded amongst us, seeding discord? Nay, Manwë shall not squander his mercy again.’

Each of his words was as painful as a stab through the heart, as I recalled how Mairon had recounted the same tale for me, and how he had resignedly anticipated my betrayal.

‘What did you do to him?’ I cried, horrified at the thought of Mairon dragged towards the yawning Moritarnon.

‘Regrettably, nothing,’ he all but snarled. ‘Your touching cry of ósanwë alerted him of our trap and ruined our plan to make him join his master until the end of Time.’

I almost leapt with joy at the news of his escape, but strove to remain impassive.

‘Small matter,’ Námo sneered. ’With or without him, a measure of evil already mars Arda. But we are fortunate that Melkor’s drudge lacks the power to cast as dark a shadow as his master once did. For my part, that vermin can skulk underground until his time of reckoning comes, now that we have retrieved you from the brink of his corruption.’

‘There was no such danger. You have ruined many lives for nothing!’ I accused.

‘For nothing, Eönwë? Your lord and I trust you to perform your duty to Arda. Behold Ambar-metta [1]!’

A scene was shaped between us, at first translucent as mist, then solid as stone. Two armies faced each other across the golden fields of Yavanna, with the Pélori in the background. On one side raged a dark horde of every kind of creature and beast that Melkor had ever twisted to his service, including unnumbered companies of Atani of many races, bearing black and red flags. At their head, The One Who Arises in Might towered over them all; next to him rode an imposing figure in dark armour, too familiar from my nightmares, on a horse with eyes of fire.

Opposite them, the other host raised sapphire banners, Manwë’s colours; vast numbers of Quendi and Maiar were formed in neat rows. I was startled to recognise myself as their commander. At my side stood one of the Atani, a tall man wearing a steel and gold helm crested with an image of the dragon Glaurung and wielding a black longsword. Turambar.

When the two armies began to advance, the vision dissolved slowly in the cold glare of the empty hall. I met Námo’s piercing gaze, without flinching.

‘Your foresight is flawed, Mandos,’ I spoke. Conviction backed my boldness. ‘The future is not cast in stone, or pegged to the chords of the Music. Mairon has shaken free of Melkor’s shadow, he is no longer bound to the fate you have built for him. It is not Eru’s will!’

‘Your paths are entwined, that has always been a certainty, but we shall not let him drag you down in his fall,‘ answered Námo calmly. ‘You are of the Light, Eönwë, not of the Darkness.’

Suddenly, I understood Nikteháa’s words: ‘Light dies in brighter light.’ I was afraid.

‘Let me go back to him!’ I pleaded.

‘That is not your doom.’

His warning glare, his dangerous presence that would have cowed any of the Children, had no effect on me. I feared, but not for myself. I was desperate to be with Mairon, to flee with him as far away as we could and hide in a remote nook lost in the vastness of Eä where doom and destiny could not find us. It was maddening to feel so powerless.

‘Your banishment stands, as do the conditions once imposed on you. You will be clad in your hröa again and return to Endórë.’ I did not dare to hope at these words. ‘But not to that petty paradise you built with your lover; it no longer exists, at least not how you knew it.’

‘But I just left...’

My words died, as I realised what the Lord of Mandos had done. At that moment, he freed me from whatever device had muddled my temporal perceptiveness, and I was again able to discern Time with clarity. Three whole months had elapsed since I had lain dead. In a hröa, I would have winced, but I was just paralysed from dread at this revelation.

‘What did you do to Kiinlúum?’ I cried.

‘I underestimated their thirst for blood,’ sighed Námo. ‘Indeed they must have been Men of Darkness, long swayed by Melkor, to stoop to such atrocities.’

‘You spurred them on!’ I shouted, appalled at his cruel callousness. ‘You made Irmo speak into their dreams with the voices of their gods. How could they refuse to obey, once they accepted the veracity of the visions? Do you not claim to do Eru’s will and to heed foresight as his sign?’

‘Dare you compare me to the rabble who worship Moringotto?’ he spoke in a terrible voice.

The dire injustice of it all made me throw caution to the wind.

‘You know no pity, have no mercy for those in your care. In the name of Ilúvatar, you abuse your power to destroy lives without a qualm, just to see your own ends met,’ I cried, both with voice and thought. ‘Hear me now, Doomsman. I swear never to betray Mairon to you, or to your kin. If he be a friend, I shall guard him from your vengeance; if a foe, I shall fight him with all my strength, but never under your banner or my lord’s, for your guilt will be etched into each of Mairon’s deeds henceforth. My word hear thou, O Eru!’

The echoes of my heartfelt speech died against the naked stone and a dreadful, eerie silence followed. I wondered if Námo had conveyed my oath to my Lord, and I hoped that Manwë would voice his answer then, if only to berate me. He did not. Clearly, I did not deserve his attention; my discipline was too trivial a matter for him.

‘You will regret your foolish vow,’ spoke the Lord of Mandos slowly, watching me as though to relish the effect of every word, ‘when you watch Sauron be damned to an eternity in the Void with his beloved master.’

‘Curse you, Vefántur!’

Blind with wrath, I discarded my fana to blast myself against him. His servants immediately raised shimmering fields that caged me within invisible but unbreakable walls.

Soon, defeated and desolate, I willed myself to adopt a harmless red hue to signal my compliance. Námo sent a minute flare in my direction and the oppression spun by his Maiar to secure me faded away. Expanding a little, I swirled slowly, savouring the freedom I was about to lose. Unfazed, the Doomsman continued spelling out my fate.

‘Once incarnate, you shall go to Lindon and swear fealty to Ereinion,’ he ordered. ‘I harbour the hope that you will see sense again when you pause to consider how Sauron manipulated you, but do not be tempted to search for him. Your life will become much less pleasant if you do.’

He waited for my answer, I had naught to say.

Once more, I soon found myself locked into a naked hröa, under the contemptuous glares of his Maiar, now clad and standing guard around me. This time, however, I found respite in the comfortable closeness of my flesh, in contrast to the hostile emptiness of Mandos.

When all was done, I touched my face and hair tentatively. Námo guessed my purpose.

‘You are still in the same hröa, Eönwë. Not the one I made for you three yéni ago, but the exact copy of the one you discarded when you... returned, except for the injury caused by the arrow.’

I immediately flicked my gaze to my forearm, searching for a scar I had acquired during a recent sparring session with Mairon. The jagged pale line was there, barely visible.

I touched my left wrist, recalling a sudden loss.

‘Ah, yes. I was told you wore a most peculiar and valuable... trinket. I had it retrieved.’

I eyed him warily. In response, he conjured images of a dark whirlwind wrapping itself around my corpse, making the brave warriors of Kiinlúum, my men, run away or huddle on the ground in abject fear.

I gasped when I saw Mairon’s precious gift, so painfully earned, gleaming on Námo’s palm.

‘This is it.’ He smiled, amused. ‘Aulë would have never allowed me to plunder his stores to make a new one.’

‘May I have it back?’ I blurted, more eagerly than I intended.

‘You could buy the whole of Lindon with this, you know,’ he replied, weighing it in his hand. ‘I am wary about returning it to you, as only one other than Aulë could have infused it with sentience, and maybe malice.’

I was about to protest, but he waved his other hand. A stream of particles drifted from the band of mistarillë towards me and wrapped itself around my arm. Soon, I was startled by the coldness of solid metal and a sudden weight on my left wrist. With a pang of longing squeezing my chest, I clasped Mairon's cuff with my right hand, then gazed back at the Lord of Mandos, suspicious at this gesture.

‘You may keep it. I have no possible use for it.’ Námo frowned, as if troubled. ‘Sadly, while studying its properties, I removed its sentient power, believing it harmful. Only its creator can restore it now. But I am certain that you will not regret being bound by such a pretty reminder of what Sauron wished to turn you into, of what you might have become at your lover’s side, had it not been for my intercession.’

I tested the veracity of his words. The shackle did not open at my will, as it once had. I looked up at Námo, mute with rage at his cruel mockery. Breathing deeply, I clenched my hands and reminded myself that he was not omniscient, that I should not be goaded into revealing the whole truth about my feelings for Mairon, about the overwhelming pleasure of kneeling to him and becoming a slave to his will.

‘I would be touched by your concern about my welfare, Námo Fëantur, were it not a lie,’ I said, surprised at the steadiness of my voice. ‘Your intercession has cost many lives, and caused the ruin of an innocent realm that happened to get in the way of your designs.’ I almost sobbed with grief. ‘I am not worth that high a price, whatever destiny you may have dreamt for me. You are able to fool others and cow them into obedience, but I shall no longer be deluded by your pronouncements of doom, whether your own or spoken on behalf of a lord who dared not meet his faithful servant.’

Having called Námo a liar to his own face and Manwë a coward, I trembled with fury, waiting for him to strike, wishing he would blast me into nothingness, were it possible. He watched me, inscrutable.

‘Do you not understand yet, Eönwë? All of this was meant to pass, to weaken Sauron while you grew stronger, in preparation for the end of days.’ His tone was no longer stern, and his look held what must have been sympathy, for Mandos was seldom moved by pity.

‘Stop toying with me!’ I cried, no longer caring about my own fate but stricken with sorrow at what he had revealed.

‘You may go.’

Without deference, I turned on my heel and left, flanked by two of his Maiarin servants. They escorted me in stony silence during the five-day trip to Tirion, and from there to a small quay on the Bay of Eldamar, where a ship awaited.

 

~o~

 

This time I was not sick during the crossing of the Great Sea. Instead I found myself able and willing to assist the crew with their tasks, thus learning the rudiments of sailing a boat, even steering her through one of Ossë’s tantrums near Tol Eressëa.

The Telerin captain asked no questions, though several times I caught him eyeing me warily. I wondered how often he was ordered to transport a passenger brought aboard by two Maiar from Mandos. As I was bound to meet far more inquisitive men, I spent long hours attempting to craft a new identity. Manwë had not given me the name he once promised, so I perversely chose to call myself Eglanir, in the tongue of Beleriand [2]. I considered many potential ancestries and tales, even outrageous ones to amuse myself during the restless nights when I was not on guard shift but swaying in my hammock or standing at the prow, staring East.

My hröa betrayed me as a Noldo, my eyes shone with a brilliance that would be mistaken for the light of Aman. I recalled the Exiles that had survived the War and taken Gil-galad as their king, and realised that any fabrications were bound to be questioned and easily disproved. The long memory of the Eldar is only outlasted by the bristly suspicion of the Noldor.

In the end, I decided my words and deeds should hint of a past as a follower of the house of Fëanáro, a survivor of Maitimo’s host and, in all probability, a kinslayer. At the end of the War, these people had been reserved and lonely, proud in their ragged cloaks embroidered with the eight-pointed star. Despite Ereinion’s mandate, they were shunned and mistrusted, and found it hard to obtain employment. Unless circumstances had greatly improved, the ostracism I was likely to meet if I chose to adopt these men as my closest affiliates could be turned to my advantage at planning a discreet escape.

When idle, despair weighed me down and led me to imagine Mairon’s possible fates, each vision more dire than the previous one. I raged against Manwë and his heartless Doomsman, called upon Eru to right their injustice and, ultimately, shed bitter, angry tears. When my shipmates caught me with red, prickly eyes, they spared me a sympathetic look or a rough pat on my back.

And yet, hope had not died in my heart. Each day at sunrise I stood at the prow, looked East towards Endórë, and vowed to evade the surveillance of the Valar and to seek Mairon, as soon as the chance arose.

 

 

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Notes:

[1] Ambar-metta (Quenya) the end of the world

[2] Eglanir (Sindarin) forsaken