~ The Thread Spinner ~ by Spiced Wine

Chapter 1 ~ Wings from the North ~

Read Chapter 1 ~ Wings from the North ~

~ The Thread Spinner ~

~ Wings From the North ~

~ The sky burned red as a conflagration, as if some god had lit a vast fire below the rim of the world. And he had indeed been called a god, and the inferno he ignited was war. In Mordor, long quiescent Orodruin was still in sullen eruption, turning the sunsets crimson and purple, setting the clouds aflame. Red. The colour of blood, the colour of war.

The falcon flew as if hunted by demons — one demon, at least, for was he not that, and the greatest? There had once been dragons that ruined cities and wrecked mountains in their fall, valaraukar creatures of flame with whips of fire, werewolves, orcs, trolls, and Melkor, master of them all, now banished from the world. But he, he had survived.

So she flew, a falcon’s flight into freedom, away from imprisonment, away from the destruction of the truth that wrapped around her mind like fire, like fetters. As he had tried to.

But she was weary, close to exhaustion. The power she had opened herself to was greater than any she had tapped before. It had been there, waiting for her, belling a warning even as it beckoned, but there had been no choice, at least for her. And so she had grasped at it, gulped it down like too-potent wine, like the legendary white mead of the Valar — and fled.

She had no fixed destination at first, the to less important than the from. She fled from torment and she fled from betrayal; that latter reaching far beyond the anguish of a woman whom had loved her father, would have trusted him with her life. Perhaps she would never recover from the brutality of that betrayal, but what came after was a treachery of such magnitude that it spanned Ages, went back into a time beyond her knowledge. It would shatter kingdoms and change the world.

A crucifying spike of memory, of his strong arms holding her when she was a child, frightened of the storms breaking over Ost-in-Edhil, gave her a fresh impetus of rage. Her wings seared the air.

She had been flying all day; through passes in the grey Ered Lithui, veering South, feeling the East wind off the steppes sleeking her feathers. She flew, and the sun paced across sky.

Perhaps, in the recesses of her mind, there was a destination that guided her flight. He had spoken of lands in the South and East, rich, exotic places, but across the Harad stretched the Dune Sea and the Mirror of Fire. Trade roads crossed them, but such a journey would be savage.

Behind her, like a vast, fiery shadow rising against the sky, she could sense him, his towering fury. It terrified her beyond measure, the truth of him, his power. That he had power, she had always known, that he was a Fey, but she had not come close to guessing how much. Or whom he was.

Her mother had known his true identity though, and almost from the beginning. For a time she had hated Culinen, retreated into horror and fury, suicidal. Terrified of herself, of what she might do. Blood of Fëanor, blood of the Ainur. What might she not do?

Aulendil, Annatar...Gorthaur the Cruel. Sauron. The names seemed writ before her eyes in flame, trailing into a long, bloody past. Melkor’s lieutenant, whom had walked the deeps of Angband, the Hells of Iron, whose essence went back into a time before Time. Enemy of Elves and Edain.His dominion was torment.

My father.

Her father, Aulendil, sometimes frightening, always demanding as much of herself and her intelligence as she could give. He had no use for mental laziness, and she sharpened her own mind on the whetstone of his, was buoyed by his praise, glowing with pride when he bestowed it, knowing it was earned.

Her father, Sauron, whom had tortured Maedhros in his captivity, broken Finrod Felagund before succumbing to Lúthien’s own Song of Power. And not a half of his deeds of cruelty were known, she suspected, less than that.

And despite it all, despite everything, she had never truly thought he would hurt her. Neither had he, not personally, but she did not know if he had ordered her torment in the Barad-dûr.

Clouds were building a cross her path, giant white thunderheads whose tops frayed into ice crystals, the anvil-shape of storm clouds. She could not avoid them; they were towers higher than Barad-dûr, mocking her with their enormity. A vein of lightning flickered toward the ground.

She had to land, to Change, find shelter, rest. In her fatigued state, it was easy to imagine that he reached out his hand from the north and brewed the storm to hinder her. Whether that was true or no, she could not fly through the rain.

The sun vanished; the air, dark now, crackled with energy. A curtain of rain enveloped her, lightning broke the air in blazing arteries, and the shock of thunder sent her hurtling, with a hawk’s scream, toward the ground.

She saw the crumpled shadow of hills split with narrow green verdure, the pallid gleam of buildings, a pool glinting in the last of the light, grass whirling up to meet her...And there was a music, somewhere, awful, beautiful...and his voice saying his name for her: ‘Náryen.’

OooOooO

Hearing returned first, peering from the soft darkness of sleep. She heard the musical dance of water, as if a fountain were playing nearby, the soft whisper of a breeze. The air smelled of linen dried in the sun.

Her limbs were bedded comfortably, her head pillowed. She thought for a drowsy, delicious moment, that she was at home, drifting betwixt sleep and waking, untroubled, unthinking but slowly a deeper sense, never fully asleep, lifted her into consciousness.

The room was spacious, filled with the golden light of late afternoon. Its walls were hung with tapestries in rich reds, yellow, orange, hot, bright colours; long drapes stirred in a warm breeze and from beyond them came the light, endless music of a fountain.
A low couch was set against one wall, a table at its side. Near her, a smaller table held a jug in a wide bowl and a cup. A sense of disorientation sparked through her mind. Just so had she awoken after almost committing suicide, unable to bear the knowledge of whom her father was, of what she herself might do. Blood of a monster. But she had been followed, Sámaril and Thorno had pleaded with her, caught her and carried her back to her home. When she woke she had been alone, but her mother’s scent lingered in the room.

Mother. Another crevasse loomed, deep and black. Her mother was dead, her spirit called to those dark Halls in the West. So much for her romantical thoughts of changing Sauron through love. No-one could change another person, not the core of them, that choice had to come from within. And he had chosen power.

She propped herself up cautiously, concentrating her mind inward as her father had taught her, to assess, to heal. She could find little amiss with her body that more rest would not put right. (But, oh! the Changing had hurt!) Her mind was another matter, scorched, tender.

She reached for the jug and paused, noting her bare arm, its cleanness, the faint trace of a flowery soap that clung to the skin. Her hair, too, had been washed of grime and combed. But her wrist looked too lean and there were scars, already fading to silvery lines. On one finger gleamed the superlative mithril ring he had made for her. Her captors had not seemed inclined to remove it. She had tried, wanting to hurl it far away, smash it to pieces, melt it to slag as she had that other ring she had once worn — I want nothing from you! But it resisted her efforts, even as her hand thinned through self-imposed privation, its subtle power purring against her skin.

It was an effort not to knock the jug across the room. How could he? His voice echoed back to her across the years ...My little love. I will never let anyone or anything hurt you.*

Her lips pressed together, trembling. She wanted to scream, rage, hurt him.
Deliberately she lifted the jug, poured.
It was water flavoured with mint, lemon and honey, and cut through the dryness at the back of her throat like an elixir, spread down her throat and into her stomach. The torpor of long sleep faded; a pity, she thought, since now she would have to face everything she had fled from. She straightened her shoulders. I am Fëanorion. Half, anyhow. The other half...She lifted her chin.

A quiet knock sounded. She stiffened, but the sound was gentle rather than peremptory and would not have woken a sleeper. She had the feeling that if she told them to go away they would do just that.
‘Enter.’ She pulled the sheet up over her bare breasts and then, as the door opened, so did her mouth.

The man who walked in looked like a god, if a god could look like an Elf. He also looked familiar, although she had never, she knew, seen him before. He was wide shouldered and slim, with endless legs shod in black breeches and leather boots. His hair was drawn up, falling in a thick braid which swung above his knees. His skin was a flawless cream, with a straight nose and moulded mouth. And his eyes were purple, glowing under thick lashes like jewels set in silver. It was not the light of the Trees, for she had seen that. It was harsher, far colder. His presence was like a punch out of the dark. In the tranquil room he blazed like a luminous black torch.

Horribly aware she was not — yet — in any condition to fight or draw on her powers, she stared, holding herself rigid, holding harder to what she knew. She knew she had flown a long way, yet here was...whatever he was. She wondered if he had somehow confused her flight, taken her back to Mordor because she felt, and for no real reason at all, that this strange man was connected in some way to Sauron. But this was not the Barad-dûr. There was none of that tang in the air, the oils and metal of the great machines that throbbed like a distant, perpetual thunder through the titan edifice of the Tower. The light was too calm and golden to belong to the desolation of the Gorgoroth.
Emboldened by her march of logic, she pressed all the power she could summon into her eyes and glared.

The man said: ‘I am glad to see thee awake, lady.’

His words were like an ancient scroll unfurled, the voice smoky-rich as incense in some unknown temple. The Sindarin was antique. It cast her back into confusion mainly because there was no threat in it. She had become almost to expect verbal violence, with a greater violation promised. Her hands fisted in the sheet.

‘Who are you?’ she asked abruptly. ‘Where is this?’

‘My name is Vanimórë,’ he said. ‘And this is Saikan.’

Her mind scrambled with a mental map. ‘The Harad?’

‘On the edge of the Mirror of Fire, Lady. May I?’ He indicated a footstool, and when she shrugged, drew it forward with one foot and sat down, folding those long legs. He was dressed simply in black doeskin, its severity like a uniform. A knife rode in a sheath at his thigh, another at his waist. His hands were long-fingered, bare of rings, but she saw the sword callouses as he rested them on one knee, and he moved with the confident grace of a warrior. She caught the scent of bath-clean skin and the woody musk of sandalwood.

‘Did you...’ she hesitated. ‘find me?’

‘We were hawking.’ He nodded toward the shrouded windows. ‘And a storm came on. It was strange, that storm, so swift and violent. It seemed to come out of nowhere. We turned to come back and found thee by a small lake a league or so away. It looked as if thou hadst tried to reach the water and collapsed. Thou wert drenched and chilled. We brought thee here.’

‘And washed me?’ Her voice was wary around the edges.

‘The women of the house bathed thee, tended thy wounds and put thee to bed. They watched over thee until it was clear thou wert in a natural sleep.’

She nodded, relieved, yet annoyed that she was grateful for simple consideration from a man. How easily the expectations of a lifetime could be stripped away! She remembered how her pride had been stung when her father and Tyelperinquar had refused to allow her to work on the Rings. ‘Not suitable for a woman,’ her father had said and explained, after, that such use of curwë would involve opening herself to the minds of Men. That was not a place he wished his daughter to explore. She had thought then, it was a clumsy excuse. No excuse at all, in fact. Was it, rather, that, as his daughter, it would have brought her too close to his mind? **

But in one thing he had not lied: the minds of men could be a cesspit. To be a woman meant more than injured pride; there was the dreadful helplessness of being seen as an object, her body used against her. She was no fool, knew such things happened among Men (and even to males themselves; rape as a weapon of war was as old as history) but one could know a thing and yet have no real knowledge until it was there, there in the pinching hands and leering mouths, the power in the eyes that made you nothing, stripping you (and all your accomplishments, your intelligence, your individuality, your fine, fiery pride) of personhood.

Fear had lashed her into fury, had opened her mind to the power that waited, seething, in her veins, power that she had not wanted to even touch when she learned from whence it came. But, when she needed it, it came like a hawk to the lure.

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly polite. ‘would it be possible to call in one of your wives? I need the use of the necessary.’

‘Certainly,’ He rose again. ‘Thou art quite safe, lady. Try to rest and heal.’

She was not so certain now that he did have anything to do with Sauron. But, as she reached towards his mind, she found a steel-hard wall erected. It would wait. She inclined her head, gave him something back for his courtesy.
‘I am called,’ she said. ‘Mélamírë.’ And you call yourself Vanimórë, but what are you?

OooOooO

She did not see the man for several days, but when they learned their guest was recovering, the women came to spend time with her. In the beginning they were visibly nervous, as if she were an exotic creature half-wild, possibly dangerous, yet they also seemed fascinated by her. She could not, at first, understand their tongue, but one advantage to having both Elven and Maia blood was a facility with languages.

The wives, of which there were many, were large, lovely brown-skinned creatures with huge eyes, who twisted brilliant scarves about their heads and whose ankles and wrists chimed with heavy silver. When she indicated she was ready to leave her rooms, they lead her out into the small courtyard bright with potted flowers. A high wall blocked the view, and though it was a pleasant enough place to sit in the morning or evening, watching the women talk, sew, sip their tea, Mélamírë could not imagine living in such enclosed circumstances.
But their obvious contentment went some way toward calming her. When she moved past their initial wariness, she found them kind, generous, inclined to humour. Whomever (whatever) their husband was, there were no fingerprints of cruelty in their minds.

That the strange man was the women’s husband was a misunderstanding corrected during one of these idle afternoons. They referred to ‘our Lord’ and ‘the Prince’, when speaking, and Mélamírë had assumed they were talking of the same person, but no: their lord and husband was Prince Tonda-kai of Saikan. Prince Vanimórë was ruler of Sud Sicanna. She did not know this? But surely — she had the eyes of the Shendi — like him — she knew this, no? Ah, she was teasing! They chuckled.

Shendi. What did that mean? Oh, (with some embarrassed looks) the White Ghosts of the North, immortal, killers, half-demons. That is how the stories went, did she understand? But of course, they did not mean she was a demon (more furtive glances). Elves, Mélamírë thought. They meant Elves.
Her confusion and curiosity bloomed afresh. In his long absence from Ost-in-Edhil, her father had written letters from the south and east, even passed through Sud Sicanna, but never mentioned anything about the ruler; it was the kind of news that would travel especially if, as she had gleaned, he had been ruler for ‘many, many lifetimes’.

Anger spiked again. Those letters, filled with news, affection and the hope of soon being united with his family, had been lies, a smokescreen, the smoke that of war. Damn you. Damn you!
Decisively, she rose. ‘Would you be kind enough to tell Prince Vanimórë that I would like to speak to him?’

He came with that long-sliding walk and she frowned. She was still certain she had seen him before, or someone like him.

‘Thou art looking better, Lady Mélamírë.’

‘Thank you.’ She still felt fatigued at times, near to tears and closer still to anger. She clung to the anger; it was, she felt, more healthy, easier to deal with. She had never been a woman who wept easily, and she did not intend to become one now.

‘I depart within a few days,’ he continued. ‘and I do not know whether thou wouldst wish to remain here. The Prince will house thee as long as thou doth wish, he has assured me—‘

‘That is generous of him,’ she interrupted, ‘but I mean to go on.’ Somewhere far away where his hand could not reach.

‘And fly where, Lady?’ She started. ‘I saw thee come out of the north on falcon’s wings, smelling of the lightning. I saw thee fall, but when I found the place, there was a woman.’ He raised a hand, palm upward. ‘It is none of my business, but I am curious. Who would not be?’ ***

She thought furiously, and to give herself time, said, ‘And I am curious too. Who are you and how do you come to rule a city-state in the Harad.’

A little silence fell. He smiled radiantly, but it was like a slap in the face. It was her father’s smile, a memory of a time long ago and forever lost. There was not even any comfort in it.

‘Fair enough.’ The smile faded. ‘It is no secret, but thou — thou art a mystery. Thou wert imprisoned, tortured, shackled. Thou wert fleeing for thy life and thou didst speak in thy dreams. I would like to help thee if I can.’

She folded her arms, a defensive gesture, and she realised it with some annoyance. ‘What did I say?’ she asked warily.

He did not answer immediately, those brilliant eyes on hers. When he did speak, he seemed to choose the words with infinite care.
‘Thou didst speak of thy...father. Words both of love and of hate. Of thy mother. Of betrayal. Of a war in the north, in Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil.’

Mélamírë blew out a long breath. ‘You know of these places?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘Yes, long ago.’ There was no expression on his face.

‘He...gathered armies to him from the East and South,’ she said almost to herself. ‘You...Sud Sicanna do not follow him?’

He raised an eloquent brow. ‘Him?’

She swallowed bitterness. ‘They call him the Zigûr.’

This time the silence stretched out. From the garden a small bird called two sleepy notes.

‘Sauron. Yes, I know him.’ The words came oddly flat. Then: ‘Ah, Hells, I thought there were no others, only one, and she long dead.’ He stopped, took a long breath then: ‘There is no way around this, Lady. Thou art familiar with ‘sanwe?’

‘Why?’ she hedged.

‘I prefer not to use it if there is any other way, but I will allow thee into my mind, lady, because what I am going to tell thee will, I know, be unbelievable, and thou wilt need proof. I cannot think of another way to give it to thee. Or not one thou wilt believe.’

‘Proof of what?’ Every muscle tensed as for fight or to flee.

He looked down at her hands; she felt an impulse to cover the gleaming mithril ring.
‘First, let me tell thee that I know who thou art. Or what. Sauron crafted that,’ he nodded to the ring. ‘for thee.’ A peculiar expression flashed across his face. ‘Thou art his daughter, and I — I am his son.’

OooOooO

---

Chapter End Notes

* Orcling:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1710

** Aulendil refuses to allow Mélamírë to work on the crafting of the Rings but she is then commissioned by Galadriel to create her Mirror in
The Writhen Pool:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1785

*** This is directly taken from
The Jinn:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=996

Chapter 2 ~ Entanglement ~

Read Chapter 2 ~ Entanglement ~

~ Entanglement ~

The music of the fountain seemed to fill the room, laughing in the sudden silence.

Mélamírë said flatly, ‘No. That is not possible.’ Her voice came preternaturally calm. Her mind screamed shock.

I wish it were not. For thine own sake, I wish it were not.

He had thought himself inured to surprise, but finding this woman, laying like a wilted flower after frost, had proved him wrong. The power that crackled about her was familiar; he knew it too well to be deceived, yet subtly different, like one melody played on two separate instruments. And so he had looked into her mind while she slept, (not something he did willingly, save when a criminal came before him, but this time he deemed it necessary) and saw not only who she was but another world entire — and he had reeled. He would have said, as she did, That is not possible, but arguing against it would be bootless, since it clearly was possible. And the evidence was here before his eyes. But how?

‘Then look,’ he said simply. ‘But I must in conscience warn thee that it will not be pleasant, and there will be some places I cannot allow thee to go.’ Many places. Most of them. He gauged her expression, added gently, ‘I have no doubt of thy courage and hardihood Lady, but trust me, there are times, places,I do not wish to revisit, even in memory.’ From which there was never any escape. ‘But thou wilt need to know what I show thee.’

She said, in a strange tone, something of dark laughter in it, and something of tears: ‘He told me a man’s mind was no place for me to look into.’

‘I suppose it depends on the man,’ he said, not entirely disagreeing. ‘I will show thee enough to convince thee of the truth, no more.’
He saw her face harden on the fractional nod, and mentally saluted her. I am not sure how I would react to what she is about to discover.

It was difficult to allow her access, with that lightning-scent about her, the hum of the ring on her hand. The privacy of his mind was something he valued, even though Sauron could enter it with contemptuous ease. But it had been a long time now since he had heard that voice, felt that touch. Not long enough. And his freedom (he had always known it temporary) would not last forever, indeed he felt that it would not be long now before he was summoned, but he would enjoy it while it lasted.

Her silver-flecked eyes seem to expand like a cat’s and he braced himself, but her touch was not the same as Sauron’s; it was powerful, but more subtle, strong, but not brutal as Melkor’s had been, or the dagger-slice of Sauron’s (though as incisive). Vanimórë felt that she shied away from exerting her full mental faculties on him, probably on anyone. He barred the gates to the darkest places, retreated behind them.

She shuddered, lashes flickering, but did not blink, all her focus concentrated, intent. It took heartbeats only, but she would have discovered everything in that time. Or the most salient points at least.

Sight returned to her eyes and she stumbled back, her face registering astonishment, a burst of panic. Reflexively he moved to steady her, but with a visible effort she righted herself. Her long hands clamped each side of her head, and she closed her eyes, brows drawing hard.
She said, ‘The Threads of Vairë.’*

‘The what?’

‘Vairë,’ she repeated impatiently. ‘Vairë, who weaves the threads of Time.’
He could almost hear her brain spinning behind the star-grey eyes.
‘Time. And Space. Are you aware of the possibility—‘ suddenly she laughed. ‘the reality! of other worlds, other universes, many of them? that we, you and I and every other living thing, even the Valar, I assume, exist not only in one manifestation of Arda,’ she moved a hand to pat the wall. ‘but in others too? It may be an almost identical version, perhaps only a change of hair colour, a little height difference, or it may be vastly different.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, Sauron spoke to me of this. He found it fascinating, but I was not aware it was more than a theory.’ Art thou aware it is more, father?

‘He said it was a possibility.’ Her mouth curled wryly. ‘Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that there are countless possibilities and, until they are chosen, woven into the tapestry of Time — maybe Times is more accurate? they remain only possibilities. Except every possibility must be true — somewhere.’

He had seen that look before, that brightness of intellect focussed on one task. It was eerie.

‘I created a scrying device,’ she continued. ‘one that could show such possibilities, things that might come to pass. I developed the curwë for it.’

Impressed, he nodded. ‘There is no doubt thou art his daughter. Not that I doubted.’

‘I am Fëanorion,’ she flashed. ‘I am not only his daughter.’

‘Really?’ He was intrigued. ‘Thy mother is Fëanorion?’ He wanted to laugh incredulously, and yet...it was not that surprising when one thought about it. Sauron had a taste for brilliance, and the Fëanorion’s had always intrigued him.

‘Was.’ Grief darkened her face like the shadow of a blow cloud.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. And he was, but not in the least surprised. Was? Of course, was. What, didst thou use her just to get a child? Again? A different reality, perhaps, but the same Sauron.
‘Wine?’ He offered. ‘It is from Isfahan, and rather good.’

‘Who is your mother?’ She took the tart, stony white wine, drank.

‘Was, again, Lady. She was a woman of Finrod’s house. A captive. May I ask why he imprisoned thee?’

She tapped one finger against the goblet, long lashes veiling her eyes. ‘Do you wish to look into my mind?’

‘I did,’ he said with an apologetic little grimace. ‘when thou wert unconscious. Forgive me, but I had to know. There was power all over thee, in the air about thee like static. It felt like Sauron but not quite. I will not do so again. I look on mind-work as a kind of violation.’ Especially when Sauron used it to farrow into his thoughts.

She favoured him with a long, hard stare, but said, ‘He wanted my loyalty, for me to follow him. Do you know, he told me that, when I was born? I almost died. He spoke to me. I never remembered until long after, but the memory was there. He wanted me to follow him through love, not from fear as he had followed Melkor.’ She sounded bewildered. ‘How could he think it?’

‘As he imprisoned thee, I take it thou didst refuse.’

A flush bloomed along her high cheek. Her eyes blazed silver sparks. ‘Of course I refused! He put me in the hands of his servants, who dragged me like a slave to Mordor, to the Barad-dûr. And they—‘ Her mouth snapped shut.

‘That was stupid of him, then,’ he said. ‘Power is a corrupter. Perhaps his servants thought to please him by tormenting thee into obedience, but when men have captives in their power their basest natures often rule them.’ Especially when their prisoner is a woman, and a beautiful one, a strong one. Men seem to enjoy destroying them.

Tears glimmered, turned her eyes pure silver and reminding him poignantly of Maglor, but she was fighting them, this proud woman, flung into a Middle-earth that was not her own, battling the panic that he could feel radiating from her, the anger, the grief, the loss.

‘I do not judge people’s courage by their tears, Lady Mélamírë,’ he murmured.

But she did not weep. She threw back the massy black hair and screamed, a sound which brought the Prince’s women tumbling, wide-eyed, into the room. The primary wife, Jendina, summed up the situation with one look, bowed and retreated, shooing the other before her.

‘I thought...I thought he loved me!’ Mélamírë flung the goblet, which rolled with the ring of silver, shedding the wine. Her white teeth were bared, her eyes filled with fire, the fire of Fëanor’s blood and of Sauron’s. ‘He taught me, he held me in his arms, he was proud of me! And he...he...’
The tears came then, brief and scalding. She beat his shoulder with her clenched fist, and he did not move, only offering himself as something to rail against until she was calm.

It did not last long; she turned away, wiping her face, disappeared into the bathing room. Water splashed. Vanimórë picked up the wine goblet.
‘Wouldst thou like to be alone?’ he asked. ‘Should I send in the women?’

Mélamírë snapped aside the curtain. Her face was hard, resolute. ‘No, not yet. I need to talk to some-one who would not think me insane.’ She glanced about the room with a trapped, impatient look, grimaced. ‘I need to get out. Are there horses?’

‘Yes, of course. Thou art not a prisoner. But art thou strong enough?’

‘Yes.’ Her look dared him to disagree. ‘I heal quickly, and the exercise will do no harm.’

He acquiesced, but said, ‘I should come with thee, then. I know the land.’

She dressed in loose leggings, tucked into leather boots borrowed from one of the wives, and a voluminous cloak that covered her hair. Nevertheless, she was stared at as Vanimórë lead her out of the house and to the stables.

This was a summer hunting lodge, Vanimórë told her as they mounted and rode out. Much of Saikan was arid, hugging the desert but the Kanin Hills on its western border were gentler, the narrow valleys rich with springs and greenery. Silver and tin were mined there, Saikan’s main export.

She sat the leggy grey horse with ease, holding one rein as she turned to look back at the lodge sprawling among its gardens.
‘Jendina said you visit every two or three years.’

‘Saikan is an ally of Sud Sicanna. Yes, I like to...encourage my alliances. A personal visit often does that.’

She sent him a wry glance, then sank back into silence. A track lead gently downhill under the shade of trees. A stream flowed beside it, cool and dark, plashing over worn rocks. Birds piped and the emerald shadows wavered in a soft breeze. Vanimórë watched the set of the woman’s shoulders, saw the tension still coiled there. Of course. He wondered how he would have felt had he woken to find himself in another time.

‘I need to understand how this happened.’ She reined in. Her profile was pure and hard against the blowing green. ‘Did he do it? But he said he could not manipulate the Threads. Or was that a lie, too?’

‘Probably not. I think he would have, if he could.’ He considered. It was not possible to tell, with Sauron. ‘It may have been an accident, if there is any such thing when it comes to the Threads, or perhaps it was thee. Thou hast Ainu blood, thou wert fleeing, terrified, furious. I told thee of the storm that blew up out of nowhere. And is it not impossible that thou shouldst come here, where I am, one if the few who would see what thou art and believe thy tale?’

She frowned, her mount pawed at the earth.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is too much of a coincidence. Or at least highly unlikely.’ He smiled, waited while she thought. ‘This time is long after mine, historically. And what I saw in your mind...the Ring....’ On the words fear and fury burned her thoughts bright as a bonfire. ‘The Ring did not avail him anything.’

‘The Last Alliance won that war, lady, but Gil-galad died, and Elendil and Anárion, and two thirds of the wood-Elves under Oropher, and so many others. And the Ring was not destroyed. I would not, myself, call it a victory.’ He could not keep the old sorrow from his voice.

‘And he — Sauron — was not destroyed. You are sure of that? Absolutely certain?’

‘I would know were he gone from the world, Lady. But he was much reduced. At first I could only sense he existed, but over time his presence became stronger. He has not called me back, not yet, but I think he will. And soon.’

She drummed long fingers on the saddle-bow. ‘That was why I could not feel him when I woke. Or only something like a distant echo. So if the Ring were destroyed, would he be?’ The horse walked on.

‘He is Maia, I am not sure they could ever be completely destroyed. I asked him once. He had put so much of his power, his essence into that ring...but he laughed.’ She favoured him with an unsmiling stare, brows pinched.

‘Where wert thou planning to go?’ he asked.

‘There is a kingdom,’ she said, ‘Bharat. It is rumoured to be hidden, guarded by power. If that’s true, It is somewhere he will not find me.’

‘Ah yes, I know that feeling well.’

‘You could never escape?’ She slanted him a look.

‘His hold on my mind is too strong. I tried, when I was younger. he always drew me back.’

Her mount sprung suddenly into a canter. He followed. The track was clear and there was no danger for an experienced rider. Her robes billowed out behind her, as if she would race ahead of her fears, the shock of displacement, the hurtragefear of her father.

They came out of the cover of the trees, followed the stream across a flat pasture where goats moved, protesting, from their path and the sun fell hot. The stream debouched into a small lake, trees crowding to drink of the moisture. It was a quiet, green place, the water deep and clear. The horses pulled forward to the shore, dipped their heads to drink.

Vanimórë unsaddled black Seran, opened the saddlebag and drew out a packet of flat bread, soft cheese rich with garlic and herbs, dried figs, a flagon of wine. He spread them on a clean cloth, sat down. Mélamírë pushed back her cloak, folded her legs under her and tore a hunk of bed. Seran nuzzled at her and she smiled as he took the offered chunk from her hand.
‘He is a beauty,’ she said. ‘and knows it.’

Vanimórë looked affectionately at the great stallion. ‘He is a cantankerous and ill tempered bastard. But he has a great heart. He suits me.’

They ate for a while in silence, the horses tearing at the sort grass. The sun spangled the pool, a fish rose to the surface as shadows veiled the water, concentric rings spreading out. Mélamírë propped herself on one arm, sipping the wine. Her eyes were distant.
‘I have no idea what I can do,’ she murmured. ‘or even where to start. I am not even sure that this is not a dream.’

Vanimórë thought of his own dreams, and dreams within dreams. Shuddering away from them, he locked them away.

‘I wonder if I exist in this reality, and if so what I am doing. Perhaps I did serve him, or perhaps I was killed in the war, or made my way to Bharat. Perhaps I was not born in Ost-in-Edhil at all.’ Her eyes turned to him. ‘And do you exist where I came from? He never mentioned a son.’

‘Interesting to speculate is it not? Perhaps the Vanimórë of thine own Middle-earth is enjoying a truly wonderful life. Bastard.’

Her eyes were heavy on him. ‘I do not want to believe that he could do what he did to you,’ she said slowly. ‘I saw enough, and I know there was a great deal more you concealed. And I do not want to accept — not yet — that he lied, that he feigned love for me, for my mother. That it was nothing. Do you understand?’

‘I understand,’ he assured her. ‘It is natural to expect love from our parents. Even orcs have some familial affections. And perhaps the Sauron of thine own world did love thee. It is important to remember we are not speaking of the same person.’ Her black brows crooked, beautiful mouth tightening. ‘He did not kill thee, he wanted thee to follow him through love, as thou hast said. And he, personally did not hurt thee. At least not physically, though I grant that emotional wounds take far longer to heal, if they ever do. His servants overstepped their bounds, and I imagine they will pay for it.’

‘You are trying to comfort me.’ A faint note of accusation.

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I also think it likely to be true. He holds no love for me. I am useful, no more. But that does not mean another Sauron, a little different, might not love a daughter.’ He had one. He had Vanya And she was nothing to him but a commodity he would have thrown away on Melkor.

Her face shook, she averted her head, dark tendrils curling as they escaped the loose braid. She was so guarded he felt she might scorn his sympathy, and then he had to laugh inwardly. In that, she was exactly like him.

Abruptly, she leaned forward, pulled off her boots. ‘This pool is safe for swimming, I assume?’

‘Perfectly, yes.’ He drew a drying cloth from the saddlebag, handed it to her.

She walked down to the bank, a little way under the trees and after a moment, he heard the soft splash of water, saw her swim strongly out toward the centre of the pool. She trod water for a moment, then dived down. While Vanimórë did not think she had any suicidal tendencies, at least at the moment, he watched nevertheless, mentally timing. He did not relish the ensuing battle if she did decide to drown herself on impulse. Not that he truly feared she would; if she could keep her mind focussed on the problem of returning to her own Middle-earth, it might keep such thoughts at bay. He almost wished (on an inward grimace) that Sauron was around to ask about the Threads. Who else was there?

Her. She must know as much as anyone.

The sunlight slanted longer now, spearing gold down through the trees. Mélamírë’s sleek black head broke the surface, and she swam like an otter toward the shore. Vanimórë busied himself saddling the horses as she emerged.

‘Gallant,’ she said when she had dressed herself. ‘Are you as considerate of your wife? Or wives?’

‘Well, I hope my wives would not mind my looking at them naked,’ he grinned with a spice of mischief. ‘But I am not married.’

‘Ah. You prefer men?’

‘I take what I can get, and grateful for it.’ He lead Seran forward. ‘Wouldst thou like to try him? We have time to ride a little longer before dark.’

She flashed him a challenging smile and mounted gracefully. Seran, who carried no-one but Vanimórë on his back, snorted and then proceeded to act as perfectly as if he were on parade. No doubt Mélamírë could have handled him had he misbehaved, but clearly Seran sensed she would stand none of his nonsense. Vanimórë gave the stallion a mocking look. ‘Oh, thou art a terrible old charmer.’

Beyond, the land sank toward the margins of the desert. With a soft click of her tongue, Mélamírë let Seran have his head. The stallion’s strong hindquarters bunched as he launched into that effortless, floating gallop, running toward the horizon, a black arrow loosed from an Elven longbow, the woman bent low over his neck, damp hair whipping.

The grey horse was strong and fleet-footed, but he was not Seran. When, at length, Mélamírë slowed, circling, she was smiling as she patted the sleek, arching neck. Behind her the desert stretched far into the West.
‘Where did you get him?’ she asked. ‘Almost he could be bred of the horses brought from Valinor.’

‘I breed all my cavalry horses,’ he said. ‘Some from the north, from the lands of Calenardhon where great horses run free. I cross them with the horses of the desert. Seran has fathered fine foals.’

‘You have a cavalry? There are wars, then?’

‘Skirmishes, sometimes, tribal conflicts. Mostly, I fight for my allies if they ask for help. No army has marched on Sud Sicanna in a long time.’

They swung back toward the hills, their shadows thrown long before them.
‘Why Sud Sicanna?’ she questioned. ‘I mean, why did you choose it to rule?’

‘I knew the city well,’ he said. ‘I might have gone further, after the Last Alliance, but what was the point? He will call me back and I think sooner rather than later.’ He was conscious of those grey eyes on his face. ‘And the ruler was a rapist and killer of children. I knew he was a voluptuary who kept many pleasure slaves, and drove them out into the streets when he was bored of them, but until I arrived there after the war, I did not know his secrets.’

‘You killed him?’

‘Yes. He had over-reached his hand, taking the child of a captain of the guard. With the palace guards and the city soldiers behind me, it was easy. So I took Sud Sicanna and have ruled it ever since.’

‘Could you not have sought Valinor? Sauron could not reach you there.’

‘Hells, no!’ She looked startled at his emphatic denial. He said more quietly, ‘No, Lady.’

Her brows lifted. ‘You think they will punish you for being his son?’ There was more than one question in her words.

‘The answer is: yes, they would, but that would not be the first or greatest reason.’

She hesitated, bit her lip. ‘You cannot know that.’

‘But I do know it.’ The memory of Gil-galad’s punishment after death and Tindómion’s shattering grief could still enrage him, make him wish for power, power enough to throw the Valar down, make them crawl.

‘Very well,’ she conceded, ‘But that is something I do need to know, as I think you will agree.’

‘I hope it will not be necessary for thee to deal with the Valar at all.’

‘I’m not overjoyed at the prospect myself!’

‘Suffice it to say unless thou art as spotless and blameless as the legendary snows of high Taniquetil, thou hast little chance of their favour.’

She blinked. ‘Then it would seem that many people would not find favour in their eyes. No-one is spotless. Do you mean I might be...punished for my Fëanorion blood as well as my father’s?’

‘Probably not the Fëanorion blood, no. Although with those bastards, who knows? If the Valar in thine own world are different, more reasonable than they are here, then I am glad of it.’

The wind was dying, the sun dipping swiftly toward the limitless West. In the low, intense light the hills before them looked vivid, flat, like a painting on glass.

Mélamírë nudged Seran into a trot, turned her head toward him.
‘So if you will not seek Valinor, and I do not blame you, then why not make this life as...pleasant as possible, at least while Sauron is gone?’

‘Thinks’t thou it is not, Lady? A time of not being his slave is wonderful, I assure thee.’

‘Vanimórë,’ she said dryly. ‘Are you trying to fool yourself or me? The women said you have no wives. Do you have any companionship at all? I can’t imagine it is easy for people to become close to you.’

‘I am wounded.’

‘I’m sure,’ she smiled drolly. ‘Do you not have children? They at least would be companions and, if dynasty concerns you, they would continue your rule of Sud Sicanna.’

‘It does not concern me.’ He looked straight ahead. ‘I cannot father children, Lady. It was something Melkor did, long ago.’

She caught herself up with a little gasp. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘And if I could beget children, Sauron would claim them. Or he would try to. I would give no child my life. I would rather kill them at birth.’ He stamped down on the passion in his voice, said, more calmly: ‘Unmarried rulers are a magnet, Lady, and in this land for ambitious men more than women. Canst thou imagine the poor girls being groomed to fill my bed, my third wife, my fifth, my eighth? There is something distasteful in that.’

She was eyeing him gravely.

‘You could be right. Yes, and I can imagine it is difficult to live among Men, knowing they will die. I have known the Secondborn all my life, and it never gets easier, but that is no reason to hold oneself aloof from them.’

‘Do I?’ he asked. ‘hold myself aloof?’

‘But perhaps you have no choice,’ she mused. ‘their ever-living prince, that would cause isolation.’

‘It does, of course, but I do love my people.’ It had surprised him, his sense of obligation to them, his capacity to care.

‘Perhaps, but it is an overarching care, a general concern.’ She circled one hand. ‘Laudable, but easier than a personal connection, a deep commitment.’

‘Thou art speaking of love.’ He smiled, remembering Maglor, wondering where he was now, only knowing that he lived. There had been something between them, forged of pain, and hate and desire, but he could not name it love. It was too furious, too desperate.
‘But perhaps thou wouldst tell me of Ost-in-Edhil?’ He changed the subject. ‘I never saw it until the war.’
His words deflected her as he knew they would.
You were there? You attacked Ost-in-Edhil?’ Any softness had gone from her face and her eyes were like lances.

‘I was there, yes.’ Their gazes held. He had no excuse and would offer none.

Her shoulders stiffened.
‘Ost-in-Edhil. They said it mirrored Tirion, in Valinor. We had a row house, with a garden and terrace looking West.’ Her fingers tangled in Seran’s mane. ‘And I was — am — a craftswoman, apprenticed to the Otornassë Míretanoron. I earned it. I picked up my first tools when I was scarcely more than a babe and he — my father — encouraged me in everything.’

‘He would appreciate an intelligent child,’ Vanimórë said. ‘I do not imagine that was pretence.’

‘I knew from a young age he was different, one of the Fey, and sometimes he could be frightening, but I had no doubt at all he loved me, wanted to protect me.’ And savagely, ‘And do not humour me with platitudes, a father who loves their child, their wife, does not do what he did!’

‘I never thought he knew how to love,’ Vanimórë mused. ‘Maybe Celebrimbor, when he spoke of him...at least that was a meeting of minds he cherished.’

Mélamírë’s face was white, furious, and beneath it anguish screamed.
‘What is it?’ he asked gently.

‘He tortured Tyelperinquar.’ Her lips hardly moved. ‘The man he called the brother of his heart. I didn’t see it, not all of it. I think I was knocked unconscious but I saw him holding the hot irons. I didn’t...’ Her voice wavered. ‘I hardly recognised the monster as my father.’

‘He did the same in this world,’ Vanimórë said. And I killed him, Celebrimbor. Sauron wanted me to, for all his words. And he knew I would.

Tears glinted. She dashed them away. ‘I want him to rot,’ she hissed. ‘I want him to scream as Tyelperinquar screamed.’

‘He might yet.’ He reached across to touch her shoulder. ‘He never really wanted to destroy the Elves, rather rule them. Had they bowed to him...’ He shrugged. ‘I did not think they would, but he could be very plausible, very charming when he wanted to be.’

‘Indeed.’ Bitterly. ‘And he was, for a long time. Brilliant, and alarming, at least to many, and sometimes to me, but he loved me, he loved my mother, and all the time, all those years he had one end in mind. My mother died, and he tortured Tyelperinquar, and I don’t know what he would have done to me, in the end.’

Neither did he. And there it is, thou dost not know. She wanted to believe her father would not have hurt her.
‘But he did not torment thee,’ he said. ‘Thou didst effect thine own escape. Perhaps he did love thee and thy mother. Remember, he is not the same person.’

Shockingly intelligent eyes pinned him. ‘And not all that different, if he tortured Tyelperinquar both in my world and this one.’

‘Perhaps the difference between them is that he loved thee, Lady, in thine own Middle-earth.’

‘Does it anger you, that he could at least, dissimulate and pretend to love me?’

‘Ah, Lady, thou art acute.’ He pressed a hand to his heart. ‘In a way, yes. I hoped, once, that he might love me, but that was so long ago. And I beg thee not to regard my — admittedly — confused emotions.’

‘You do not permit yourself much weakness, do you?’ she observed shrewdly. ‘I understand why, but jealousy would be a perfectly normal reaction.’

‘And neither dost thou permit thyself much weakness,’ he returned. ‘For I do not count a few tears. And we both know why. Because where would it stop? How long could we scream before our minds gave way?’ Or perhaps that had already happened, long ago, in Angband, or Barad-dûr.

‘You are correct,’ she replied tightly. ‘I cannot allow myself any weakness. And certainly not here.’

‘What wilt thou do, then, Lady?’ he asked. ‘I leave with my men in two days time. Thou canst come to Sud Sicanna, and I can provide thee with an escort and coin to journey south if thou wouldst still seek for Bharat. But I cannot help thinking it would be better for thee to head North, to Imladris, maybe. I can likewise have thee escorted to Umbar and hire a ship to take thee to Lindon. At least they are Elves and would have some understanding.’ And there was Tindómion who would, in her world, be close kin. ‘There may be people who can help thee. Glorfindel would be there.’

The reaction was there, subtle but unmistakable.
‘You know him Glorfindel? How?’

‘When I was captured on Gorgoroth, in the war of the Last Alliance.’ When he had made damned sure he was captured. ‘I was put in his charge for the rest of the siege.’

‘I know Glorfindel.’ And well, he would wager. ‘In my world, not in this.’

‘I cannot imagine him as being very different in any world,’ he said with a smiling look back at the few times they had been together, passion spiced with rage, with the scent of blood and a long, dragging war.

The laugh strangled itself. ‘In some ways, he will be, I assure you.’

‘Art thou concerned the Elves would not accept thee?’

‘I was accepted.’ She twisted her damp hair in one hand, let it fall about her shoulders in dark spirals. ‘They were almost unbearably kind, in fact. Elrond helped pull me out of the pit.’ Her breath heaved once. ‘But that was there, in my world.’ Her eyes glinted. ‘Did they accept you?’

‘I never told them who I was,’ he admitted. ‘I doubt they would have let me go had they known.’

‘Perhaps not,’ she agreed. ‘Then how did they account for you, an Elf serving and fighting for Sauron?’

‘They thought I must have been very young when I was captured,’ he said. ‘And they saw that Sauron was linked to my mind, that I was bound to his will. In the end, they had far more important things than me to deal with. It was a savage war, Lady, and it solved nothing. Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron’s hand, but refused to destroy it, calling it weregild for his father’s and brother’s deaths.’

Unconsciously, he thought, her finger circled her own gleaming ring.
‘How would they have destroyed it?’

‘If they had thrown it into the lava of Orodruin, from the Sammath Naur where it was forged, it would have been destroyed. He told me that, once. If there was any other way, he did not reveal it to me.’

Mélamírë closed her eyes. ‘And why did they not do that?’ It was almost a plea.

‘Elrond was with Isildur, and tried to persuade him to throw it into the fire. He refused. I would have kicked the stupid bastard into the fire with the Ring, but Elrond is a much kinder man than I am.’

Almost she snorted. ‘Truly.’ Her mouth curled a little, then straightened. She glanced North. ‘I wish I could be sure beyond doubt that he cannot manipulate the Threads. How can I believe anything he said to me? I thought I heard his voice say my name before I collapsed by that pool. His name for me, Náryen. I fear he knows what has happened, that he might follow me.’

Vanimórë put a hand over his eyes. ‘Hells, I hope not. The last thing I wish to contemplate is two manifestations of Sauron in my own Middle-earth, even if thine would be glad to be shot of him. Thou canst not leave me here with two of them, Lady!’

She snorted. ‘How powerful is he, the Sauron of this world?’

‘After the loss of the ring?’ Vanimórë made a see-saw motion with one hand. ‘Impossible to know, as yet. He is not going to come walking into Sud Sicanna any time soon, I think, but he would not do that anyhow, he would send for me, Malantur probably, his Mouth.’ His own twisted on memories of that poisonous bastard. ‘In his strength, his mind is like a wall of fire against mine. It grows stronger, but it is not yet as it was before. As to whether he will regain his former power, I cannot even guess. I am surprised he survived, but he does seem to have a talent for surviving.’

‘He does that,’ she nodded. All of a sudden she was decisive. ‘I will come to Sud Sicanna, then. At least to begin with.’

‘Very well,’ he said, bowing over the saddle. ‘Thou wilt be welcome, Lady.’

‘Istyanis,’ she corrected. ‘I earned that title and even here, it is still mine.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Istyanis.’

OooOooO

---

Chapter End Notes

* The Threads of Vairë. These are from the Pandë!verse, specifically The Writhen Pool:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1785
Galadriel commissions Mélamírë to make what becomes known as The Mirror of Galadriel. Aulendil and Mélamírë mention the Threads.

Chapter 3 ~ Uneasy Waters ~

Read Chapter 3 ~ Uneasy Waters ~

~ Uneasy Waters ~

~ That night, and for the first time, Mélamírë was invited to dine with Prince Tonda-kai’s household. She was rather touched that the women had arranged that gowns be made for her, bright cotton that wrapped over the breasts and under the arms, with long, fringed shawls draped over the shoulders.

Prince Tonda-kai was a short, lean man with soft features at variance with the shrewdness of his dark eyes. His head was shaven and oiled, and thick red-gold draped his chest in descending chains stuck with gemstones.
Vanimórë had said he was wary of her (‘as he is of me’) but he was courteous, though his eyes strayed to her often, speculative and more. His scrutiny was not unkind but, raw from her recent experiences, she could only be glad that she was not remaining in Saikan, though his offer was couched politely.

It was also the first time she had seen any of Vanimórë’s men, several of whom sat below their lord’s table. They were young, save one, a Captain L’tul. Some possessed olive-gold skin and dark curls, others were black skinned, white teeth startling against the darkness of their flesh. All were uniformed as Vanimórë, in black leather and also seemed to emulate his poise. Even when dancing girls came, casting out gaily-coloured scarves with come-hither glances from kohl-rimmed eyes, they were restrained. They, too, gazed at Mélamírë when they thought she was not looking, but their looks did not make her skin crawl.

Either, she mused, Vanimórë selected his men from those who did not favour women, or they were superbly disciplined. She suspected the latter. Vanimórë, without the least effort, dominated the room. He was a guest here; he might as well have been the king, Tonda-kai his subject. No doubt she was Sauron’s daughter? There was no doubt whose son he was. Aulendil had always walked as if he ruled the world. She was conscious of a growing curiosity to see Sud Sicanna, whether she remained there or not. She needed quiet, a workshop, access to the same components she had used when creating Galadriel’s mirror. It has occurred to her that perhaps she could reach Galadriel of her own world through a second scrying device. What good that would do she was unsure, but she had to begin somewhere.

‘A workshop?’ Vanimórë said the next day. This time they rode east, deeper into the hills, stopping beside a lovely little waterfall that tumbled into a spear-shaped pool. Tiny butterflies hovered over splashes of wildflowers, and trees offered shade. Four of Vanimórë’s soldiers had accompanied them; now they busied themselves with the horses before setting out food and drink.

‘Is there danger?’ Mélamírë asked, gesturing at the escort.

‘I doubt it, but I am cautious by nature,’ he returned. ‘Besides, it is a pleasant ride for them.’ A slim young man with a rather beautiful face and glossy curls laid out food and drink for them. His amber-brown eyes smiled as he bowed to Vanimórë.

‘My thanks, Tanout, now go and eat, drink, relax.’

‘Sire.’ Tanout saluted and joined his comrades some way away. There came a rattle of dice, low voices.

‘A workshop,’ Vanimórë continued when she had listed her requirements. She did not tell him what she intended, or even about Galadriel’s mirror. Not yet. To a point, she felt inclined to trust him, but only to a point. He was Sauron’s son, bound to Sauron’s mind by his own admission. If she could not afford the indulgence of tears, she could not, either, afford the indulgence of wholehearted trust. It was a lonely position to find oneself in.
‘Yes, the palace has workshops and thou may have one for thy work. As for the rare metals and ores...Sud Sicanna is a trading hub. Thou shouldst be able to obtain anything, though it may take some sourcing. If the only place that particular ore exists is Hadhodrond, that is more difficult.’

She shrugged biting into a cold leg of capon, and chewed, swallowing. ‘I can extract the element from zinc ore or coal, if I have to and if there is enough of it.’ And if she could replicate the workshops of Ost-in-Edhil, she thought, with a pang. Gone now, burned, broken, all that knowledge, all that art, which she had thought her father cherished... She could only hope that the people she cared for had, somehow, survived.
The meat became tasteless in her mouth. She put it down, reached for wine.

‘There are guilds in the city,’ Vanimórë said. ‘Unfortunately none that deals with the movements of Time and Space. But any thou wouldst deem useful will be delighted to help thee.’

I am sure they will, she thought. He would make certain of it.

‘One of them blew up their hall and set fire to their hall a few years ago,’ he added reminiscently. ‘Fortunately there were only minor injuries. It did not seem to discourage them in the least. I believe their hair and eyebrows grew back eventually.’

She looked up, saw those splendid purple eyes twinkling, and had to laugh. It released the constriction in her chest, but the sound was half a sob.
‘What were they doing?’

‘Explosive powder. Sauron has used it, and the Númenoreans too. Sulphur —‘

‘Charcoal and saltpetre,’ she finished. ‘Black powder.’

‘Some brilliant idiot wanted to try and use it with arrows,’ he said. ‘Asked me to watch a demonstration using one of my soldiers and a slave. I said I would watch if demonstrated himself, and on a non-living target. He almost died of his burns. Now I have banned its use save for quarrying. It is quite useful for that purpose, or clearing deep-rooted trees, not that there is much need for that in Sud Sicanna.’

She eyed him curiously, with some disapproval. ‘I see your point, but experimentation is important. You have absolute power in Sud Sicanna, then?’

‘I do not mind people experimenting, Istyanis, just not on other people without their consent,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I do have absolute power of rule. Sud Sicanna is not like an Elven city. The chieftains of the Clan Houses vie against each other. Corruption is common, assassination is not uncommon. I did not escape the attempts, though no-one has tried now for a long time. I have to have absolute power.’ He sipped his wine. ‘And yet it is a better place, I think, a fairer one then when I rode through its gates.’

‘All tyrants would say the same. As would he.’

She saw the fury ignite behind his eyes, so that for a moment, he was not a man but a force, inhuman and ancient. Then, brutally, he repressed it.
‘I am a warrior, a commander of armies, and the ruler of a city. Those, Istyanis, are the only things I can do. But those I do well.’

She said, stiffly, ‘I apologise.’

‘What for, for telling me I am my father’s son? I am.’ He tilted his head. ‘I was born in Tol-in-Gaurhoth. I was raised and trained in Angband. I wish to the Hells I was not Sauron’s son, and thou doth wish thou wert not his daughter, but we are his children. And some things leave imprints. I have no doubt I would be a much better man had I been raised among Elves, but I am not. This is all there is.’

Outrage heated her blood. ‘I did not mean to imply that I thought myself superior to you!’

One of his black brows arched. ‘Thou needst not, Istyanis, I am sure thou art.’ He lifted a hand. ‘Never mind that now. I have been thinking. There is someone in Sud Sicanna who might help thee, but I am not sure if she will.’

Mélamírë tucked in the ragged edges of her temper. ‘She? Who?’

‘She is a goddess. So she says.’ He refilled their cups. ‘She was slain there, where Sud Sicanna was later built, by Melkor, in the days when he denned in Utumno. Or that is what she showed me. Her blood went into the land and she slept for Ages of the world. The tribes had legends of her, the Sleeping Goddess.’

Settling back, Mélamírë listened. ‘She says? She showed you?’

‘I woke her.’ He made an odd movement, as if wrenching away from something. ‘She calls herself Dana, the Mother.’

‘I have heard of such tales, a mother goddess.’ He woke her, and not easily, by the look of it.

‘I re-dedicated the temple to her. There are no longer any sacrifices, at least not of the kind Melkor would have desired.’ He lifted his head. ‘Tanout, come here a moment. Tell the Istyanis Mélamírë what thou canst of the temple.’

‘Sire.’ The young warrior bowed his head respectfully. ‘Everything? But we are not permitted to speak of it.’

‘Only what is common knowledge.’

Tanout cast a look at Mélamírë, drew a long breath and straightened; a soldier giving a report.
‘Men may sacrifice at the temple of the Mother,’ he said. ‘Or sometimes are called, as I was. The sacrifice is not their blood, but their bodies.’ His smooth cheeks pinked. ‘The High priestess, or any of her chosen acolytes have the right to...’ he seemed to hunt for the right words and discard several before ending: ‘to use us for their pleasure.’

‘The priestess do not marry,’ Vanimórë said. ‘Very well, Tanout.’ He smiled and the young man bowed to them both, returned to his colleagues. ‘Because Dana does not, but they can and do have children. Girl-children usually, though not invariably, stay in the temple, the boys might become soldiers or apprentices. Bastardy is not a stigma if a child is born to the temple.’

Mélamírë did not know whether to be amused or annoyed. Her voice came tart. ‘You allowed that poor boy to be passed around like a...’

‘I had nothing to do with it. And he professed himself willing.’

‘Of course he would, to you!’ she hissed, not wanting Tanout to hear. ‘He idolises you. They all do.’

‘Dana demanded it,’ he said temperlessly, his eyes veiled. ‘Sometimes she steps in, in place of the temple women, if the man is to her taste.’

I see. ‘Is that why you do not trust her?’ she asked. ‘Because you do not. Do you?’

He set the wine up aside. A frown drew itself between his brows. ‘I do not,’ he admitted. ‘Not for that reason, though. I doubt I would trust any Power, and she does have power, but she does not seem to do anything with it. She says she walks the world in the guise of a woman, many women, she can take any face and form she pleases. I wish I could believe she does good where she wanders, but...’ He looked at her. ‘She is fickle. She will never answer a straight question. She comes to me for sex, tells me it is my duty. Yes, I can see that it would be somewhat amusing, except that—‘

Except that...he had hidden most of it when she looked into his mind, but she had seen enough to know what use Sauron and Melkor had put him to. There were no images, no walking into scenes of horror, but it was so much a part of him that no barriers could entirely conceal it; it was written into his flesh and blood, a shame and rage that burned like acid into his mind. He might hide it from others, but she could feel it around him like dark, fire-shot wings.
‘I do not see that it is your duty,’ she disagreed. ‘Did you not wake her?’ (And how?) ‘What can you possibly owe her?’

‘I wonder that myself,’ he said frankly. ‘She says I am a man,’ with a disarming smile. ‘The temple has some power in Sud Sicanna and all power must be balanced. As to what I was saying: perhaps Dana could help, but she seems to do only what she wants to. And...’ His expression became intent, a little rueful. ‘Dana can look like any woman, but she has certainly never looked like thee.’

She willed down the blush, turned the subject: ‘So you do not have absolute power?’

‘I do, but in matters spiritual? I would not even want them.’ He made a wry face. ‘I suppose Mortals need something to worship. Many still reverence Sauron out of fear, and Melkorian worship and Sauron’s are so linked together one cannot really separate them, although Sauron would like to! others turn to Dana, or tribal gods, or swing between all, hoping to offend none.’

‘I would have thought that after so long...how long have you ruled Sud Sicanna?’

‘Seven hundred years, or a little more.’

‘Then they worship you. Oh, come, of course they do.’

‘I have forbidden it,’ he snapped, suddenly cold and inflexible as iron.

She nodded. ‘So they do.’

‘I would be most seriously displeased were that so.’ He came lightly to his feet, looked down at her. ‘Middle-earth is no place for gods and their vagaries. What good are they? I used to pray to the Valar, once. They never answered.’

Mélamírë remembered hearing the voice of the Doomsman when she contemplated suicide. More than contemplated. I was on the very brink. Cold as a snake it had been, and as pitiless. It was told that Lúthien had sung before him and moved him to compassion, yet there had been none for her, desperate and grieving. Unless, he thought his cold, dark Halls were a gift of peace. She rubbed her arms, chilled.
‘No,’ she echoed, hollow at the core of her, as he passed her a cloak. ‘Middle-earth is no place for gods.’ She rose, joined him at the water’s edge. ‘What do you find hope in?’ And what about me? Where do I find it?

‘Me? Nothing. I cannot afford hope.’

There was nothing in his voice, no emotion at all, and the bleak greyness of such a prospect stifled her. Then he broke into that flashing smile and said, ‘But thou hast hope: people who care for thee, who love thee. They wait for thee, Mélamírë. All we have to do ,’ he gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow, ‘is manipulate Vairë’s Threads and send thee back.’

‘All we have to do,’ she repeated, smiling despite herself. ‘We?’

‘Thou canst at least use me to throw ideas at.’

‘I will,’ she nodded. ‘I will do that.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘I know I have not been exactly gracious, and I am sorry for that, when you have been kind.’

‘I do not know what state my mind would be in, Lady, Istyanis, if our positions were reversed.’ He gleamed at her. ‘Certainly I would have no idea how to return to my own Middle-earth. I admire thine equanimity, and I can imagine, at least, how hard it is to maintain it.’

It was hard, it was almost impossible. She was hanging on by her fingernails.
She said, ‘I’m trying to make myself believe this is a dream. It makes things a little easier. Are you?’ Faintly teasing, faintly mocking, ‘a dream?’

‘I wish,’ he said lightly, ‘that I were.’

The waterfall winked and laughed at her.

OooOooO

Chapter 4 ~ Desert Jewel ~

Read Chapter 4 ~ Desert Jewel ~

~ Desert Jewel ~

The journey etched itself in Mélamírë’s mind as a tapestry of blowing dust, of slamming heat, of a land blasted white by the sun.
There were thirty soldiers, and wagons coming behind, so the pace was necessarily slow. It was irksome, but she became glad of the wagons that held, among other things, water casks. There were, Vanimórë told her, caravansaries, large and small, at every oasis on this route, but some of them could not be reached within a day’s slow journey. And one did not take risks with the desert.

There were no dunes in the Mirror of Fire. Here, the land seemed stripped and desiccated by Ages of sun; dust blew across it like lost wraiths searching for the peace of death. There were sudden ravaged hills, towers of rock sculpted by the incessant wind, unexpected canyons where one might find a lonely watering-hole, the water too bitter for humans to drink.

Like the men, Mélamírë wrapped herself in a loose robe, a turban wound about her head. The soldiers wore half-armour of mail and leather; Mélamírë adopted loose trews and boots, a soft shirt. Vanimórë used no cloak, merely covering his head with a long scarf; a cloak would not have allowed him to wear the twin swords at his back. They were mirrored in the banner that snapped out: two palm trees whose stems became scimitars that met at the base.

Vanimórë rode at the head, the banner bearer behind and Mélamírë after, between the young Tanout and L’tul whom, it seemed, had been appointed to see to her comfort when they camped at night.

When they stopped, that first night, Mélamírë felt battered by the desert. The heat was not so great a problem; she could regulate her body temperature, but she could not stay that dry, whipping wind. She watched Vanimórë dismount and land with a spring; he must be accustomed to it, she thought, and so would she become. The great stallion pushed his nose into Vanimórë’s chest, provoking am affectionate smile, a slap of the arching neck. Water kegs were broached and the horses drank. The sun was already setting with the swiftness of the desert.

Tanout poured Mélamírë a copper basin of water. She drank deeply, splashed her face and hands. There was little at this spot but a dead, twisted tree, an old tangle of shrub showing there had once been water.
‘The Prince says the desert was smaller once,’ Tanout said. ‘That it is growing year by year.’

Fires sprang up, tiny red-gold suns in the vastness, the men going about their duties with with disciplined purpose, heating water, tossing salted meat into pots. Mélamírë lay back, watched as the immense stars of the desert filled the sky. They seemed like an inverted bowl covering the world; never had she seen them so unimpeded by mountains or trees. She could hear the roar of those innumerable suns, remembered her father naming them, telling her that all but the closer planets were suns like their own, some larger, some smaller, contemplating the worlds that might circle them...she felt, laying there, as if she could float away into their ineffable light, join the stupendous power of their music.

‘Lady? Istyanis?’

Tanout’s voice jolted her out of reverie and she sat up, disoriented, rubbing her face. He offered her a bowl that smelled savoury, flat bread, a small cup that breathed the heady fumes of brandy. It was, she realised, surprisingly cold now the sun had gone down.
‘Thank you,’ she smiled.

She drank the stew, the meat softened and flavoured with herbs, thickened with chunks of squash. Small round tents had mushroomed around the fires in orderly circles. The horses munched at nose-bags, and men ate and talked quietly as if abashed by the silence of the desert. But even here, not altogether silent; Mélamírë heard the clawed skitter of some tiny, carapaced insect, but there were no birds, no animals but the horses; the night lay over them like an element of song.

There was a rustle, sudden warmth as a cloak was draped around her shoulders. She had not heard him approach; he walked like a cat.

‘It is not worth it, for this sky?’ He sank down, crossed long legs.

The food lay warm, ballast in her stomach. She took a small sip of the brandy, feeling, for the moment at least, oddly content.
‘It might be,’ she acknowledged.

‘I remember when I first saw the stars, the first sunrise...’

It came out of nowhere, the emotion, like a black wave, children’s voices, a boy’s, a girl’s, like the cries of lost gulls on a far-off lonely shore.
Vanya, Vanya! Look!’

What are they?

I do not know. They are so beautiful...

She slid a hand across her mouth. He said, quizzically, ‘What is it?’

‘You...you spoke of one like me, but long dead. Your words. You had a sister.’

Something in his face closed.
‘I never showed thee that.’

‘But you did,’ she insisted, stubbornly, ‘have a sister.’

‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘I had a sister.’

Mélamírë stared at him. His eyes, in the fireshot dimness gleamed indigo.
‘How did she die?’

For a long time, he did not reply, seeming to study her. Then, slowly, he exhaled.
‘I was not strong enough to save her,’ he said, and through the adamantine barrier she felt unending grief, aching tenderness like the last kiss before death. And at the bottom, guilt, like a ball of molten lead. ‘I was only strong enough to kill her.’

OooOooO

The wavering black line in the distance resolved itself into a long train of camels. Mélamírë had never seen them before save in illustrations, but her father had described them in the letters he sent during his absence. There was something strangely elegant about the ponderous, slow-stepping beasts, indefatigably traversing the inhospitable land.

‘This is the main route from Saikan and the eastern cities, Lady Istyanis,’ L’tul said. ‘We have cut across the desert to join it.’

‘We should reach the Oasis of Chadi tonight,’ Tanout added.

After the loneliness and silence of the desert, the trade road seemed busy. The camel train Mélamírë had seen was only one of several caravan heading west or east. The soldiers drew together to pass them, the banner snapping in the hot wind.

Vanimórë was clearly recognised. Merchants bowed their heads, some made signs with their hands when he had passed. Others said a name.

‘Dark Prince?’ She asked Tanout. ‘Why do they call him that?’

‘Because he serves the Zigûr, the Great Lord,’ the young man replied. ‘Or did, once. He told me he would again, when the Zigûr returns.’

‘Do you worship the Zigûr, Tanout?’ she asked.

‘No, Istyanis.’ He gave her a limpid, honey-coloured look. ‘My Lord does not approve of religion.’

She had to laugh. ‘But the temple? He does not prohibit religious practice.’

‘No, there are many temples in Sud Sicanna, Istyanis. It is human sacrifice he will not permit.’

And that was probably the only ‘religious’ practice he was familiar with, she guessed.

Mélamírë had not spoken to Vanimórë for three days. Although she had not asked for the brief image that had fallen on her out of the night, she yet felt as if she had prayed into something deeply private, something that still haunted him and hurt him.
In many ways, he reminded her of her father as Aulendil; there was the facade, and then what lay under it. It was said there were enormous mountains of ice in the far northern seas, where only a fraction showed above the surface of the water. It was an apt analogy.

She was relieved to see the promised oasis, a welcoming green in the barren land. The sight of the clattering palms, the smell of fresh water, was benison. There was a splendour to the desert, a glory in the star-crowded night skies, but its loneliness allowed her too much time to think when there was only the moan of the unceasing wind, the creak of wagons, the thump of hooves and the endless, shimmering horizon.

L’tul and Tanout joined her in the evenings, probably they were ordered to, but she took it kindly. They treated her with great deference, as if she was some royal emissary, and perhaps they did believe her just that. But they were wary as Tonda-kai’s wives had been, perhaps even more so. It amused her and irritated her in equal measure; the Men she had known were far more accustomed to Elves and yet, she had to admit, there was always an underlying uneasiness. Her father had called it jealousy, mortal for immortal, and said there was no cure for it.

But they were unfailingly courteous. They diced with her, told her of Sud Sicanna, and she learned that Tanout had been a street boy, an orphan, whom Vanimórë had taken in and trained to become a warrior. It was, she gathered, the dream of all young men, to earn a place in the Prince’s personal guard, and training began young.

Caravansaries were far more than large taverns; they supported the trade routes, the flow of commerce and news. Chadi was huge, solid against the desert winds, three stories high. Galleries overlooked workshops, animal pens, stalls, two fountains that spilled the life-giving water into great troughs. Mélamírë heard the tap of hammers in smithies, the bellow of animals, voices raised in energetic babble. The air was pungent with manure, spices, hot food and human sweat.

Servants rushed forward as they rode in. A man in a red robe hastened toward them, folded himself almost in half as he greeted Vanimórë.

Mélamírë dismounted, hoping a bath would present itself in the near future. Vanimórë, as if he heard her thoughts, came across, tossing back his veil. There was nothing in his face to show that anything was amiss between them. It occurred to her then, blindingly, that he was not angry at her, but at himself, hence his silence of the last days.
‘Thou canst bathe here,’ he said, reading her mind or perhaps her wistful expression. ‘A servant will show thee after thou hast seen thy rooms.’

Their rooms were on the topmost tier reserved, she guessed, for nobility. Low divans were scattered with cushions, rich rugs covered the stone floors. Fretted metal and glass lamps stood in recess and on low, polished tables. A plump, black-skinned girl glided about setting a taper to them and lit sticks of incense whose smoke twirled idly, rich and sweet. Ornate wooden screens half partitioned the three rooms, and the shutters were drawn against the wind.

Mélamírë drank deep from a jug of cool water, and unwound her veil. Dust clung to the folds, and her scalp prickled with salt from her sweat. She shook the fine cloth out. ‘There are baths?’

The woman stared, went to her knees. ‘Yes, my Lady.’

A little irritated by the obeisance, by the unmistakable fear in the black eyes, Mélamírë gestured for her to rise.
‘Then please, take me to them.’

They did not have to go out into the courtyard again; stairs lead down to the bottom floor. Perhaps these baths too, were for passing nobles. Mélamírë smelled the water, its coolness, the tang of deep minerals, saw the billow of its reflection on pillar and roof. In the ante-room, she stripped and the servant (or more probably a slave) took her clothes, bundling them protectively against her chest, dipping into another bow.

The large bath was empty, save for Vanimórë. He did not see her; his back to her, he was rinsing soap from his hair, a young male slave in a breechclout pouring clean water from a jug. The boy did see Mélamírë and his reaction caused Vanimórë to turn. He looked startled. A flick of his fingers sent the goggling slave from the room.
‘Thou wert supposed to be taken to the women’s baths,’ he said.

His voice carried back from the curving roof, brought the slave-girl cringing and bowing.
‘My Lord, they are full, a slave caravan from Sud Cull bound East —‘

‘I see. Very well, I will leave thee. Stay,’ he told the slave, ‘and help the lady.’

‘I doubt I will see anything I have not seen before,’ Mélamírë said tartly, stepping down into the pool. ‘Not unless this Middle-earth is incredibly different to my own. And at this point I would bathe with Seran. I need to wash.’ She scooped a dollop of scented soap and lathered her hair twice, the slave rinsing it clean. The cool water running over her scalp felt like the end of a drought. Satisfied at last, she twisted the wet hair up on her head and soaped her body, sitting on a sill under the water, which was warm, heated before entering the pool, and constantly drawn out through submerged gratings. She cast curious glances at Vanimórë, whom has turned away, presenting his back.

He had tattoos. She would not have expected that; startling black tattoos that traced down his wrists and over his shoulders, down his back. She wondered if they denoted anything, or were simple decoration. Against the whiteness of his skin, they were almost unbearably savage. Dark Prince.

He rose from the water with a gentle splash. With his hair, like hers, coiled up, she could see where the tattoos on his back swept down to meet. Under them, at the base of his spine, glared a red eye. A frisson of some unnamable emotion sparked through. The eye looked alive, as if it glared at her, lidless, merciless, filled with fire.
Below it were taut buttocks, those long, long legs, hairless like his arms, not like the Elf-men she had seen, although he was not wholly Elf, so that could explain it, or the fact this was a different world to her own. He had the body of a warrior, all flat lines, taut muscle...then it vanished behind the swing of a large towel. He sat on one of the stone seats, drying himself, then pulled a comb through the long, wet lengths of his hair. It curtained him in a mass of gleaming black, which he drew up and let fall from a high plume.

‘There will be a meal set out in my rooms,’ he said. ‘Wilt thou join me? Or if thou art weary, food will be sent to thee.’

‘I will join you,’ she said. ‘If you tell me when I trespass too close to your private thoughts and memories.’

His smile was a little sad. ‘Scarcely private, when Sauron can sift through them like flour,’ he said. ‘And I did see into thine own mind, so I owe thee something for that. Simply that there are some things I do not wish to explain, that I do not wish thee or anyone to see. They are not...pleasant.’

‘I understand.’ She moistened her lips. ‘But you are over-protective. I have also seen things I did not want to, and certainly do not want to remember. But I will remember them. They happened. I cannot erase them, just as you cannot erase your memories. You showed me enough for me to believe that I came through the Threads, somehow, but there are other things I want — need — to know.’

‘Yes,’ Vanimórë said. ‘of course. If our situations were reversed I would certainly wish to know all I could, and thou art right. I am overprotective, at least when it comes to women. I failed her so badly —‘

‘— You didn’t fail her. If it had been me —‘

‘— It almost was thee. His servants are vile, Lady, and some of the highest are the worst. I would impale the lot of them without a blink. I am glad thou didst escape.’

So am I. The water began to feel cold. She sank down into it so that it lapped around her shoulders. ‘I was always too curious,’ she pursued. ‘but I did not pry into thy thoughts.’

‘I know that. I would have felt it.’ He folded the towel neatly around his hips as he stood up. His belly was flat and hard, like carved statuary. ‘Join me, then, when thou art ready.’

Mélamírë watched him leave. She could certainly appreciate a fine body and she had earned a look, she thought, since he had seen her when he found her. Or what there was of me, half-starved, skin and bone. And, although he had quickly (and considerately) veiled it, she was sure she had glimpsed a certain, familiar expression in his eyes when she entered the baths. She looked at the slave, whom had gone to her knees on the stone, her head bowed.
‘Get up,’ she said, a little impatient. ‘Tell me, did he ask you to take me to the women’s baths?’

‘It was so ordered, my Lady.’ The girl stared down at her wet feet. ‘But the slaves...it is not fitting a Shendi bathe with slaves.’

‘Hmm.’ She waded to the steps, welcoming the towel draped about her. Very well, Vanimórë, I’ll acquit you.

‘Would my Lady wish a massage?’ the girl inquired softly.

Mélamírë would. ‘That would be wonderful,’ she said.

OooOooO

---

Chapter End Notes

* Tanout appears in A Light in the East, and A Far, Fierce Sky and later in Magnificat of the Damned Book III. He became one of the Immortal Khadakhir, the Guards of the Prince. The beautiful stallion Seran was also in the first two stories before he was killed by the Horde.

Chapter 5 ~ Words Over Wine ~

Map used from the Lindëfirion site.

http://lindefirion.net/maps/north-western_middle-earth.jpg

Read Chapter 5 ~ Words Over Wine ~

~ Words Over Wine ~

After the simple fare of travel, adequate though it was, the supper Mélamírë sat down to was a feast. No doubt the cooks had bustled about to prepare their noble guest the best the caravansary could offer. After the bath and massage, her hunger sated, Mélamírë, a fiery star of brandy glowing in her stomach felt better, at least in body, than she had for a long while. The gown she had changed into was cool and heavy against her clean body. She had allowed her hair to fall free down her back.
After she had dressed slave had opened a little casket, showing her a golden circlet from which depended a diamond the shape of a teardrop. The stone was flawless, blazing blue-white fire.
‘For you to wear, my Lady, from the Prince.’ A look of awe and envy was in the black eyes.

‘Where would he get this?’ she wondered, not imagining that he just happened to have it laying around, but tried it on nevertheless. It was not fashioned like the circlet Elven nobility occasionally wore, neither was it as fine, but it was beautiful in its simplicity and the gem itself was superb. She looked at her reflection in the polished bronze mirror. The diamond shone above her brows. It made her eyes look exotic, the silver stars in them burning back in challenge to the stone.

‘May I ask you something?’

‘Of course, Istyanis.’ Vanimórë smiled.

The fretted lamps cast starry patterns on ceiling and wall. The doors were shut against the night, although now and then she could hear a strain of music, the bellow of a camel or restive mule.
‘Do I remind you,’ she asked slowly, carefully, ‘of your sister?’

He regarded her for a moment in silence. ‘Only that thou art dark and lovely as she was. Her eyes were a darker grey.’

‘What was she like?’ She let the compliment go; not considering herself beautiful by the standards of her people.

He smiled as if at a memory. ‘She was kind,’ he said, slowly. ‘In Tol-in-Gaurhoth, even in Angband, there was a light about her, like some lost star dropped into the darkness, but still shining.’ He linked his hands about one knee. ‘I wish I could know what she might have grown to be, had she lived. But it was a cruel fate she was born to, a cruel Age. She was gentle of heart.’

Some stray finger of wind stirred, send a candle-flame dancing. Mélamírë glanced at it.

‘I thought he ignored her,’ Vanimórë said with a slight shake of his head. ‘that they both did, I hoped so, for that was her safety. There were Elven thralls in Angband, and they...’ He stopped.

‘I know.’ Or at least she had heard tales.

‘And then...one day, there she was, dressed like a princess in plundered finery, her hair falling about her, and said she was summoned to Melkor, asked me if I knew why. Gods help her! though they never did. I knew. Of course.’

Mélamírë had not touched him save for that short, angry burst of tears in Saikan when she had beaten her fist against his unyielding shoulder. He was hard, hard as beaten metal, for all his charm, but there was a reason for that. More than one reason. She moved across to him, settled a hand on his. His skin burned as if with a fever. No. That is Sauron’s blood, like a forge fire.
‘Enough.’ I’m sorry.

‘There is little more to tell. I had been training since we came to Angband. I could snap an orcs neck with ease. The large breeds have very thick necks. Hers was slender, like thine.’

She could not control the flinch, the jerk of her hand. She closed it into a fist.
‘That is appalling,’ she managed.

‘There was no other way.’ There was that ice again, ice and steel, the withdrawal.

‘I meant that you had to do such a thing!’

‘She did not feel anything. I know that. Our minds were so close.’

But you did. You felt it then and you feel it now.
‘What did he do to you, Sauron?’

He said, as if it did not matter at all: ‘He gave me to Melkor in Vanya’s stead.’

She came to her feet, looked down at him. Dark light blazed at the back on these purple eyes, hate like acid, and all directed inward. Turning away from it, she paced the room until she came to where he had hung his sword harness. What could one say to that? And would her father have done the same to her? Offered me to Melkor? The thought could not be borne; that was a path she did not want to tread, even in speculation. She curled her finger’s around one of the sword-hilts, the leather grip indented by the pressure of his hand.
‘May I?’

‘Only if I have thy promise not to cut my head off,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘I admit I did take pleasure in looking at thee in the baths, but I did not know thou wouldst come in.’

She cast her eyes ceilingward. ‘I’ll try to resist the temptation.’ And drew one of the swords; slim, slightly curved, they bore no runes or other decoration, but their balance was beautiful, their song like ice and swift, clean death.
‘You made these?’

‘I always make my own weapons, yes, but I am no craftsman. I just learned somewhat.’

‘He taught you?’

The collusion of ‘he’, sharing the unsharable.

‘Not at first, it was an Elven thrall, but after, when Melkor was defeated, yes, he did teach me a little.’

Her eyes narrowed over the blade. ‘Did you know about the One Ring?’

‘I knew. I told him it was a stupid idea.’

Surprising herself, she laughed, the gurgle escaping from deep in her belly. ‘Did you now?’

His mouth quirked in response. ‘I did understands his reasons for it, and it was audacious and brilliant, but really? Considering what happened, at least here, there were some definite flaws in his grand design, wouldst thou not agree?’

‘Yes.’ Her humour vanished, leaving an aching emptiness. ‘If that is going to happen in my Middle-earth. But it would never balance the scales, Vanimórë, not as such a cost.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It did not.’ He refilled each of their glasses with a tot of emberwine. ‘Canst thou wield a blade? Thou art holding that to some purpose.’

‘I’ve not held swords like this, but Golodhren women are trained to use weapons in times of great need.’

He said, ‘I jested a little, but thou wilt not have to use that to protect thyself from me, and I do not think thou wouldst have come here if thou wert afraid I would act ungentlemanly.’

She stared at him. ‘I did not think that at all,’ she refuted fiercely. ‘And you are quite right. I would not have come to your rooms if I believed you would would try to force yourself on me. Anyhow,’ she added candidly, ‘I asked the slave-girl if it was arranged.’

His eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘I would not stoop to such stratagems, but after thine experiences in Barad-dûr, thou hast every right to be wary. But I do not,’ he said with complete seriousness and, she thought, honesty, ‘force myself upon women.’

‘Why, what do you do then, woo them with diamonds?’ She lifted her brows at him. ‘Well?’

He sighed. ‘Thou hast been through much trauma, Istyanis. It is only a pretty thing that might have made thee feel a little better. I bought it from Tonda-kai. Brought it back from him in fact; it was made in Sud Sicanna. And I have very little experience — almost none would be more accurate! — in wooing women.’

‘I imagine you don’t need any.’ If she had indeed picked up this sword from a subconscious fear of attack, she was more scarred than she thought. No. I know I am scarred. And he is intimidating. But she was a little ashamed of herself.

‘I doubt any ruler needs to woo women,’ he said cynically.

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Most of the women I have known are of the South and East,’he explained. ‘And are afraid of me, at least at first. The slave who served thee was frightened of thee, also.’

She twirled the blade in her hand, feeling its balance, feeling also the blood it had drunk, like an ululating moan within the steel. ‘Yes, I saw that. It irritated me, made me feel uncomfortable.’

‘I used to feel the same.’

‘Not now?’ She lifted a brow at him.

‘I am accustomed to it now, but there are still times which anger me,’ he said. ‘When I took the rule of Sud Sicanna I also inherited the boys and women of the seraglio.’

She stilled the sword, lifted her brows. He put up a hand as if to forestall her protest.
‘That bastard — whom I took great pleasure in killing, used to have them herded out of the palace periodically, into the streets. Thou canst guess what happened to them.’ He smiled with no humour at all. ‘They thought I would do the same, and what is more natural they should affect to desire me? That is survival, Istyanis, it is an act of desperation. I would not take advantage of such fear.’

Mélamírë sat down again, balancing the blade across her knees.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Although, with your upbringing, I admit to being a little surprised. What did you do with them?’

‘Nothing,’ he said scornfully. ‘They were free to remain there or to leave, and had the freedom of the palace. I provided them with money, or apprenticed them to trades. Several of the women wed soldiers and guards, of their own will. I am a slave, myself. I am free at the moment, yes, but not for long. In Mordor, and beyond, I am known as the Slave. His slave. It is a title.’

‘You are also called the Dark Prince.’

He lifted one shoulder. ‘It is just a name. I could be called god-emperor of the stars. What I am, is a slave.’

Slowly, she moved to the sword-sheath, pushed the blade home. He could be any or all of those things, but he was also a little blind, a slave who added more chains to himself. But perhaps that is because he is Sauron’s son and trying not to be. She knew how that felt! She thought of the self-mockery that lilted in his words, mockery that dipped into self-hatred. It alarmed her because she could see it would be so easy to follow that path herself. She had already trodden the first steps.
‘I’ll make you a pair of swords.’ It was not what she had meant to say, but perhaps it was what she had been thinking.

He looked faintly surprised. ‘I thought thou wouldst be working on the scrying device?’

‘That too, of course. Making the swords will be—‘ She showed her teeth. ‘relaxing for me. The calculations for the device were excruciating. I remember them, but it will still require intense concentration.’

‘Then I thank thee, Istyanis.’ There was a smile in his eyes.

‘Call them a gift,’ she said briskly, pulling her mental musings into order. ‘Now, let us talk of him. There is something that plays on my mind.’

He raised his brows. ‘Yes? Only one thing?’

She flicked a hand in his direction. ‘Hush!’ His eyes widened with a spark of internal laughter. ‘One thing in particular at this moment.’ He was giving her such a look of innocent obedience her mouth pulled into a smile. ‘Careful.’

‘Yes, Istyanis.’

‘Did you wink at me?’ she demanded.

His eyes danced. ‘I would never so presume, Istyanis. I have a...nervous tic.

‘Of course you do.’ She shook her head at him. ‘Seriously now...You said that after the Ring was cut from his hand that you could barely feel Sauron, that he was...reduced. That was your word.’

‘Yes. There was nothing left of his form. I was there. The explosion of power knocked me unconscious. I would have thought him dead save that I knew he was not. I could still feel him, if faintly.’ His eyes searched her face, all laughter gone. ‘What art thou thinking?’

‘I am not sure.’ Her fingers tightened on the cushion. ‘If he was that weak...then his spirit could be captured...maybe.’*

‘Like the tribesmen tell of capturing a Jinn in a magical bottle?’ She glared at him but he was not smiling, and said, ‘Something like that.’

He hummed. ‘Thou wouldst have to lure him into such a trap. And perhaps thou couldst, while he was still weak.’ He had stressed the ‘thou’.

She stared into a time and place far beyond the room, this manifestation of Middle-earth. ‘I must think about it.’ Her eyes focussed again, fingers rubbing over her mithril ring. ‘But first to return to my own world.’

‘I cannot imagine how thou must feel,’ he said gently, with that deep kindness that somehow existed very near the core of him. But my father was kind too. Or was that all pretence as he watched from somewhere behind his eyes, and laughed at us for being gullible fools? Was it? Would she ever know? She pulled herself away from that thought, turned toward another, one of hope, moulded out of gold, with that mass of burnished hair and starlit grey eyes, the aura of power and intelligence that drew eyes like a magnet.
‘You said you were captured by the...Last Alliance?’ Even the name spoke of endings, of a world that would never return.

‘Yes. I was their prisoner of war for the years of the siege of Barad-dûr.’

‘Why were you put into Glorfindel’s charge?’

‘He came to the tent where I was guarded. He asked me what I was, whom I was. He knew something.’ The most infinitesimal of smiles hovered.

It was all there to read; she had seen the backward look he gave the memory when they spoke in Saikan. ‘You were lovers. Weren’t you?’

He was unperturbed. ‘I would not name it thus. The word implies some kind of romantic connection.’ Then he laughed, white teeth gleaming. ‘And I would give half my wealth to see the reaction of both Glorfindel’s if they knew that they were the ‘lover’ of the son of Sauron in one Middle-earth and the daughter of Sauron in another.’

Part of her could admit it was amusing.

‘They are not the same person,’ he reassured her. ‘And it was war, Lady, a siege, a dragging, brutal siege. He was not unfaithful to thee.’

‘No of course not,’ she said irritably. ‘How could he be? That was just a...reflex.’ Not the same Glorfindel, but love and logic were not natural bedfellows.

‘A perfectly normal one.’ He wagged a finger, quoting her own words back, mischief glinting in his eyes.

‘We were going to marry.’ She smothered the jealousy. ‘But Elves do not marry in times of war.’ He had drawn away from her, cooling, cleaving to his high ideals, to the Laws and Customs. She had sent him back the betrothal ring, melted.

‘Thou art speaking of those hoary old Eldarin Laws?’ He was so contemptuous that she started out of her preoccupation. ‘The ones imposed on the Elves of Aman by the Valar? Who punish those who love their own gender.’

‘But that’s outrageous,’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘And absurd besides.’

‘I agree. So thou canst see why I would never go to Valinor.’

She thought of her own explorations of sex, ones she did not regret in the slightest and later, dear Dísa,** the dwarf-woman, whose deathbed she had attended, and found herself suddenly burning with a sense of injustice.
‘I would not go, myself,’ she said. ‘I definitely don’t think I would fit their spotless ideal. But they are not the same in my world, Vanimórë.’

‘I wish they were not the same in any world, but I suppose anything that is possible must exist somewhere. Unfortunately, that ‘somewhere’ is here.’

‘Yet Glorfindel and you...?’

‘What would either of us care? He had already died once, and his fate is in his own hands. As is mine.’

‘I think I would like to talk to your Glorfindel.’

‘I am sure he would not like to be called that.’ His eyes were sparkling with mirth. ‘I think he should speak to thine own Glorfindel, perhaps punch him in the face for being a fool.’

‘Leave that to me,’ she said grimly. You and I, Glorfindel, are going to have a long talk, one day. ‘He tried to persuade me to leave the city, but why should I? Why should I leave my home, my craft, everything — everyone — I knew and loved, for fear of Sauron.’ She spat the name.

‘I would feel the same,’ he said. ‘I could speak to Glofindel.’ He tapped a finger to his head. ‘Mind-to-mind. We do have a connection. I never have, but—‘

Mélamírë said, vehemently, ‘No.’ But she folded the idea away for later perusal.

‘I do not doubt thou canst create the scrying device alone,’ he assured her. ‘But there may be some way in which he can help. he is Aman-born and has dwelt in the Halls of the Dead which are beyond Time.’

She stared at her ring, thinking. It was too complex, although she had ever thrived on complexity; it was challenge. She had a vision of Glorfindel after Glorfindel in world after world, of herself, of her father. It was dizzying.
‘It’s not Glorfindel I want to reach,’ she said unwillingly, because it was not altogether true. ‘You see, I created the device for Galadriel of Laurelindórand. It is she I want to reach with mine.’

‘Galadriel.’ He seemed to consider. ‘What if thou doth reach the Galadriel in this one — assuming she has a similar device, and I do not know that. My father thinks she has one of the Three Elven Rings of Eregion.’ He threw her a tight smile.

She slammed her mind shut, looked at him without blinking. ‘Of course I wouldn’t know. As to your question: I might, but the Threads weave through Time and Space. I can only hope...and experiment.’ Though seeing through the Threads was one thing, moving through them another. But I have done it, so it’s possible. Hold to that.
‘You might want to return with me.’ She was not altogether jesting. ‘If my father cannot follow me here, then yours could not follow you, either, and although I believe that the Valar are...shall we say, flawed? I cannot imagine they would be even half as terrible as the ones you speak of.’

‘Tempting,’ he said. ‘But I would have no place there.’

‘Don’t be a fool.’ she said sharply. ‘I have to make a place for myself here, at least temporarily. You have skills, experience, you could put them to use without him binding you. The Elves there don’t know you.’

Slowly, he shook his head. The simple gesture held a world of decision. ‘Istyanis, neither of us know that Sauron cannot follow thee here, though I hope he cannot. I could not risk him seeking me out. I would not like to be the reason he came to thine own world. One is more than enough.’

‘Would he follow you, if he could?’ she wondered.

Vanimórë crooked his brows. ‘Who knows? I am not irreplaceable,’ he said slowly. ‘I think he would be angry, but whether he would bother to try and follow me...? Anyhow, I could not risk it.’

Mélamírë felt the burn of his mind, let her own reach to enmesh with it. He retreated behind those steel doors, but what she felt, shook her. Star’s Blood! He wouldn’t know how to live without Sauron, for all his words. He does hate his father, but he would be like a ship unmoored without him. All he’s done is wait for Sauron to call him back.

‘Very well,’ she said, and tossed back the brandy. ‘Enough of that for now. Can we go back to the time after the War of Wrath? I want to know what happened between then and Ost-in-Edhil.’

‘Of course,’ Vanimórë said. ‘But why?’

‘I want to judge how similar both histories are.’ It was important, she felt, although she was unsure how useful it would be. But knowledge is never wasted.

‘It will be necessarily tilted toward my own experiences, what he told me, news I gleaned,’ he warned her.

‘It will do,’ Mélamírë said. ‘for a beginning.’

OooOooO

She could not sleep.

Vanimórë had opened his mind to her again to show her images that she could not accept. Or rather, she could accept that they had happened here, and hoped to Ilúvatar that they were not going to happen in her own world. But she feared they might; this past was too similar to her own.

Númenor destroyed after its king, thirsting for immortality, fell to her father’s manipulations. Sauron (’Tar-Mairon, he called himself’) spilling blood to the shade of Melkor. Had not he always said that Mortals would never lose their desire for deathlessness, that always, under their friendliness toward the Elves, even their love, lay envy, the feeling they had been robbed of the gift?

But a whole island? Her thoughts ran up against a wall. She could not believe every single person on Númenor had deserved such a fate. That some had escaped the Downfall, as Vanimórë said the survivors named it ’(Akâllabeth, the Downfallen)’ and founded kingdoms in Middle-earth, was little comfort. She was shrewd enough to know that cataclysm, like plagues, like famines, affected the poorest, the weakest, those who could not escape.

She turned over, lay on her stomach, head pillowed on her arms, drawing images in her mind from his words: the building of the kingdoms, Gondor in the South, Arnor in the North, the great cities and citadels of the South-kingdom: Minas Anor, on the last spur of the White Mountains, Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, on the very borders of Mordor. Osgiliath on Anduin, the greatest of them all.

‘And Gil-galad’s kingdom had grown during Sauron’s sojourn in Númenor,’ Vanimórë had said. ’He was threatened. And he hated the men of Westernessë after they came to Gil-galad’s aid in the Wars of Eregion.’

And then...The Last Alliance of Men and Elves. Such a mournful name! The end of an Age.

There was not much to tell after that. Vanimórë had heard that Lindon had virtually collapsed as a kingdom. He assumed, but did not know, that many of its people might have taken ship, or removed to the Grey Havens or Imladris. Gondor, itself weakened, had been subject to attacks from the Easterlings and Southrons. ’Not Sud Sicanna, no,’ he said disinterestedly. ’I have no real quarrel with Gondor.’
Isildur, whom had taken the One Ring, had been killed not long after, ambushed, it was said, by orcs.

So where is the One, now?

Again, she rolled over, looked up at the ceiling. The one lamp she had left alight still burned, small and warm.

What she ought to do was try and find it.

’The Gladden Fields, it is called. At least that is where they know Isildur was ambushed.’

Immediately, a surge of horror spiked through her. The One repelled her, even the thought of it, and it seemed to have had some unholy effect upon Isildur, possessing him to his own destruction. But he is not the Maker’s daughter. What would that shining abomination feel like on her finger? Her own mithril ring seemed to pulse. She closed her other hand over it.

What she wanted to do was go north, to Imladris, to see Glorfindel. Except he was not the same man she had been betrothed to. (But what if he is?) Because, even now, she was not devoid of humour, she toyed with the idea of marrying two Glorfindel’s. Now there was a thought. Her lips quirked, a chuckle escaping. Laughter was an anodyne for grief, the torn edges of sanity.

But ‘should’ and ‘want’ notwithstanding, what she must do was travel to Sud Sicanna and make another Mirror. Perhaps it would ‘entangle’ with Galadriel’s. Perhaps Galadriel — or Glorfindel — or Elrond, or some-one would have the knowledge she needed. And perhaps not. She probably knew as much as anyone on Middle-earth about the Threads of Vairë. Except him and he, thank the Stars, was not in evidence.

Too many damned ‘perhaps’s she thought. Go to sleep.

‘Sleep, Náryen, came that rich, deep memory-voice out of her past. I am here. Sleep.. She twisted away from it.

Náryen. A voice of hot-irons and cruelty. Cursing, she sat up.

Náryen? Softer, distant, like the tiny tap-tap-tap of spider-feet, all cold-tempered malice and curiosity. Her mind swung, startled, toward it.

Shadows hunched, slid across the room.

Just shadows. The night was silent.

Istyanis? Vanimórë’s voice, deep and reassuring as a hand on the shoulder. All will be well. Sleep.

All would be well. It had to be. She had to rebuild her life out of the ruin of betrayal. She had to go home.

She thought of her father’s ambitions for her wondering, with teeth at her heart, how one whom had existed so long, and whom had lived among humans, could yet be so ignorant. Perhaps that would be his downfall in the end, some facet of humanity that he couldn’t comprehend, smaller than the clash of armies, yet greater, would slide past his assurance, his arrogance, his power, and bring him down.

Sleep, her father whispered across the years, from a time that would never come again, lost in the ashes of Ost-in-Edhil, in the shadows of the Barad-dûr. All will be well, meldanya. Sleep.

The mithril ring sighed on her finger, softer now, a drowsy lullaby. Mélamírë lay back down, pulling the covers over herself as it sang to her, drawing her back to childhood, a song he had sung over her cradle.

Will it be well? Will it?

Vanimórë had said, ‘I believe thou wilt return to thine own Middl-earth, Mélamírë because that is thy place.’ He had laced his long fingers together. ‘Everything connects. So he says, and at the moment, there is an imbalance there because of thine absence.’

‘If I was dead, there would be an absence,’ she pointed out.

‘But thine essence, thy spirit would still exist,’ he said. ‘Somewhere. Try to sleep, and not to worry. There is immense balance in the universe.’

So her father had always said.

Sleep.

Softly, Mélamírë surrendered to the gentle undertow, her limbs growing heavy, her mind drifting.

Náryen? The word whispered around the room.

The lone lamp flickered, and went out. ~

OooOooO

.

---

Chapter End Notes

I apologise for not being able to create proper click-through linksa. I’m working on an iPad with a keyboard, which is fine, but a touch-screen is useless for this, I need to get a mouse.

* This is actually what did happen to Sauron in the Pandë!verse. When the One Ring was destroyed, Sauron’s spirit was drawn into the mithril ring Mélamírë was wearing. She was, at that time, in Minas Tirith, using her skills in the defence of the city. She gave the ring to Gandalf who took it to Valinor where Sauron was given a new form by the Valar, but imprisoned. While a prisoner, Sauron begins a written correspondence with none other than Bilbo Baggins as is told most wonderfully in the story:
The Prisoner and the Hobbit: (By Pandemonium_213 and Dreamflower).
http://www.lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=1856

Also, in the Pandë!verse, Mélamírë does marry Glorfindel after she returns from a long absence in Bharat.

** Songs of Stone and Mountain:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=2382&chapter=1

Pandë’s links and info:

I don’t know where the idea came from, to attempt something for B2Me with a gift fic, but it did.

Years ago, Pandemonium_213 and I used to occasionally talk about our OC’s, hers Sauron’s daughter and mine his son. I believe we used to sometimes discuss their meeting.
Pandë has not posted for a long time due to her incredibly demanding job, but I just want you to know, Pandë, that I have never forgotten your stories or characters, which are very much alive to me.

I hope you don’t mind my ‘borrowing’ Mélamírë for a little while. And I also hope I did not make any horrible blunders with her or your ‘verse! All the stories I used for reference are listed in the notes at the end of chapter 5.

The B2Me prompts I used from Music of the Waters (hah! This is set in a desert! But considering the time frame I used in Mélamírë’s story and in Vanimórë’s, it was bound to be).

5. Create a fanwork where a character unintentionally gets wet— caught in the rain, falling in a lake, or whatever you like.

14. By hard fate was she born into such days, for she was gentle of heart and loved neither hunting nor war. Her love was given to trees and to the flowers of the wild, and she was a singer and a maker of songs. (Unfinished Tales, “Narn i Hîn Húrin”)

29 http://res.freestockphotos.biz/pictures/16/16665-aquatic-environment-with-trees-pv.jpg

To write this fic I drew on several stories in Pandë’s amazing and comprehensive archive of works. Among them:
Orcling:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1710

The Apprentice:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=151

The Writhen Pool:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1785

Songs of Stone and Mountain:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=2382&chapter=1

Winter’s Drums:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=2176

The Jinn:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=996

The Elendilmir:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=279

A Rose By Any Other Name:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1280&chapter=1

The Prisoner and the Hobbit: (By Pandemonium_213 and Dreamflower).
http://www.lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=1856

Abundance:
http://www.lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=1939&warning=3

The Glitter of Swords: http://www.lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=1941&textsize=0&chapter=1

My own ‘verse is hosted on AO3 and Faerie, but this time period is set within Dark Prince, the first story.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/10082/chapters/12817

http://faerie-archive.com/viewstory.php?sid=27&index=1