Loyalty Unyielding by Zlu and Luff

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Of the Rings of Power

Hello our amazing Readers, we have returned! We're so sorry for this delay, it was just very hard to get back into writing after a month of studying for exams and then surviving the said exams. But now it is over and we're back with regular weekly updates ;D YOUR VALIANT WAIT IS OVER XDDD

 

Now on the serious note, a lot of lore was dilligently studied for this chapter, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle Earth and the letters of Master Tolkien, to keep all the events as they were. As always we are simply writing between the lines and finding possible reasons and motivations for the characters to act like they had. We're trying to stay at the same time true to the canon and to the vision we have of Sauron (in this particular chapter). Tolkien for instance has Sauron go spontaneously missing for thousand years sometimes and then 'arise again' - we just assume he was not sleeping curled up in a cave and snoring evilly all that time but actually doing something useful, laying some foundations for some future actions, sometimes even doing few things at once. We just try to figure out and logically explain what the heck he was doing all that time (since this is not 300 years now that he has to use up but... over 6000)! XD The incident with Eönwë should also very well visualise what we mean about writing between the lines, all in all, we believe that we did not change anything that was actually written about it and yet, we dare assure it will be quite interesting and new for you to read XD

 

Recommended music: something calm and instrumental!

 

Oh and, fasten your seatbelts and prepare for sudden time leap! XD

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Chapter 8

Of the Rings of Power

* * *

Back into the fires of the mountain from whence it once came, now fell the Ring, and with it too fell Sauron and the black realm of his making. The dark towers crumbled all around him and his great armies fled or yielded as the will that bound them to the Maia slowly faded together with the last shred of his power enclosed in the melting gold of the inscribed ring.

Finally the ring was found. So long he had craved it, and so long searched for it! Incomplete and torn apart, restlessly he kept looking. Age after age until at last he felt his own spirit become nothing more than eyes that endlessly pierced the world, trying in vain to find it.

His ruling ring it was. His missing part, his precious.

And despite the gaze of his eyes reaching so far and wide across the land, he still was blind, seeing only treachery and thieves around him, all the same among his foes and among his own servants. In his insane, torn and twisted mind he had expected everyone to want it and none to resist it, he suspected everyone to desire it and crave to possess it but none... none to destroy it.

For how could anyone ever wish to destroy it? The One, the very thing that could give them such great power?

For a moment even as the Ring touched the lava and his spirit became frayed and tattered, the Dark Lord still could not comprehend, for the idea was so foreign, so distant... Yes it was distant... like a memory.

And then, as he was fading, full of anger and mad from the loss, suddenly he remembered and he then knew the answer to his own question – for there had been one being that he used to know, who would have destroyed the ring long time ago without a second thought.

That being was Mairon.

Mairon would have never hesitated to destroy it on the very day of its making. He would have thrown all the rings into the fires of Orodruin if only he could have looked into the future back then and see what he was to become.

For long, long ages ago Mairon had witnessed a very similar madness of another Ainu and he had back then so often wished that the three splendid jewels in the crown of his lord Melkor could share such fate as now did the ring.

Mairon. Melkor.

When those two names echoed in his mind, suddenly, one moment before the end, all of the madness subsided and there was once more order and clarity in his mind. And it was in that brief lucid moment as his spirit was fading that it dawned on Sauron the Maia how deep he had fallen into the claws of the same very obsession, as had been the downfall of his master before him.

It was then that he looked back at the ages past and recognized all the signs of the same slowly creeping mistrust and madness after the loss that he once with such sadness beheld in Melkor.

The One Ring was his missing Silmaril.

He, brilliant strategist, patient and rational to the core, should have known better! He should have never made the rings, never let the history repeat itself... And yet he had allowed it all to happen. Somewhere on the way he took a wrong turn and fell but now... it just no longer mattered. For now the Ring was no more and he had at last been freed of it, freed of his obsession and desire that consumed his thoughts and his dreams. Yet with the ring's unmaking so was destroyed the last of his will and of his power that still was at work on Arda.

Thus Sauron too was now ended, his spirit torn and diminished to but a shred of memory and a shadow of malice and great loss. But in that second in which he was conquered it was not the loss of the ruling ring that he mourned, and not the ring that filled his thoughts. For as he fell, defeated and forever lost, at last he remembered. And then it was the One to whom his thoughts strayed to. The One beyond the Door of the Night, his dark Vala, his master, his precious.

And then the ring no longer mattered for it was all along made to be merely a tool on his way to Melkor's freedom, it was never supposed to be nothing more than a useful trinket.

In those last moments, as he remembered, Sauron's thoughts were clearer than in the many centuries before. And he knew then who was to blame for his downfall. And it was not the Istari and not the Firstborn. Not the Men and not the Perionath, the little people with hairy legs. And it was not even the degraded creature that for many years had borne the Ring was to blame. Nay, none of them. For he and only he was at fault and he was now to pay for his mistakes.

And in this moment of clarity as the Ring was swallowed by the same fires it was once forged in, Sauron looked back at the images of the past now flowing freely before him and in the dark and the cold he held onto them for as long as he could, as he was becoming nothing more than a whisper beyond the confines of the world, he still tried to find the moment of error and to recreate the path that he had taken.

And so did they align in front of his fading eyes - the images of the days long gone - and as he fell down into oblivion, with no future left before him, the Maia of Melkor held onto the past.

* * *

On the day of Melkor's capture and defeat, even though his heart was black with woe and his spirit filled with wrath, not even for a second did Sauron let the anger cloud his judgment. Never had he let an impulse of blind rage take over. Nay, on that distant day, even as he watched his master mocked and dragged away in chains out of his fortress and even as he vowed to destroy or enslave the very last of the Eldar and the Edain, the Maia's clockwork mind stayed brilliant. And already standing there, watching his lord taken captive, he began to devise a plan.

Sauron had always been patient and shunned all things rushed. Thus just like always, carefully he would first weigh all the details. He would compare and contemplate all the possible options and then select one of them, the optimal solution and he will implement it, put it in motion, striving for effectiveness and a path free of errors.

The empire of Melkor lay in ruin, his armies slain and scattered. There was naught to be done, not then on that day, not even in the years to come. And so despite his wrath and his vow of vengeance, Sauron knew well that revenge would have to wait, centuries, millennia perhaps.

But hadn't it after all always been a dish best served cold?

* * *

They would say later that he had abased himself before Eönwë, that he had fallen on his knees before him and begged for forgiveness. And it was all true. All that had indeed come to pass.

Yet since none but Morgoth himself had ever been granted a chance to peer into the guarded mind of his first lieutenant, none therefore could truly know the reasons for this obeisance that Sauron did before the Herald of Manwë. What the few present during the event witnessed on that day, was what the dark Maia had planned for them to witness. All that they saw, was what he had wished for them to see.

None knew then nor for many ages to come that what had seemed to be an act of genuine repentance and a desperate a plea for second chance, was but an act indeed and a masterful one too. None knew that it was in fact the first and most crucial step in Sauron's plan. A plan that began with everyone forgetting about him.

It was not at once that he approached Eönwë. Nay, for some time before that he had just waited and watched, for despite no more orcs and wolves, no more trolls and dragons issued out of the gates of Angband, the ruins of Beleriand remained a very busy place. Soon after the battle was over, all the war machinery broken and slaves freed from the dungeons of the Hells of Iron, Sauron witnessed the Host of Valinor being split into two parts. And as one, less significant part stayed behind to help the people and cleanse the North from all the remaining traces of shadow, the greater part of the Host, and with it most of the Maiar and Elves of Aman, wearied by long war against Morgoth's forces, headed back for their homeland. Those that returned to Valinor on that day, took Melkor in chains together with them for him to be judged and punished in the Undying Lands.

Shapeless and invisible to the mortal eye but still careful to hide from the eyes of other Maiar, Sauron watched them until the last of the returning disappeared in the distance. And although his heart urged him to pursue their trail, his mind bid him to stay, for if he had followed his master then, he would have achieved naught and thus his vow to Melkor would be made void and broken.

And so he stayed behind instead, turning back to witness the remaining of the Firstborn and members of the Three Houses of Men hunt down those of Morgoth's servants that did not on time find shelter deep enough in the roots of Arda. He stayed behind to watch as Angband was unroofed and turned into ruin, its once mighty walls and towers toppled by the talons of giant eagles of Manwë that for days on end would still patrol the skies above the scarred lands of Beleriand, looking to find the places where evil went into hiding.

Sauron would feel their keen eyes looking for him as the giant wings and swift winds bore them across the air, yet even now, after the realm had become torn and altered by war, Sauron still knew Beleriand better than any of them and if anything the scars of war and the misshaping of terrain provided him with yet more places to shelter his spirit from the Maiar.

The skies that the eagles traversed, were meanwhile growing brighter with each day, as dark clouds of fumes and ash that had always hung above them, dispersed now, blown away by the fresh wind from the West.

It was the saddest sight to behold. The three peaks of Thangorodrin lay in ruin, no longer issuing smoke and ash into the air and all the forges of Angband too were still and silent. Watching the ruined black walls from afar Sauron knew that never again would there be fire and music in the depths of the Hells of Iron and that never again would a hammer beat against the heated metal.

None could return there, at least none of importance. Too much of attention was given to the destruction of Angband and far too many weeks have the hosts of Valinor lingered in this area for the dark Maia to ever count coming back here among feasible options.

Nay, Sauron knew even then that he had to leave the ruined fortress behind and that with it, buried among the debris and corpses, he would have to leave behind the memories of the moments he shared with Melkor.

Melkor himself he would never forget but he knew that the only way to think about his master now was as of a distant icon, of a god that he would for all time serve. He knew not how many centuries he would have to wait for the Vala's second return but in his soul, he felt that those would be not three, nor perhaps even thirty. And he discerned then that if he wanted to stay efficient, his mind had to stay clear and the direction apparent and he knew that there would be no place for longing and for guilt, none for regret and for foolish dreams.

From now on he would have to rule out feelings and work by the plan. And the first point of the plan was very clear to the dark Maia – he had to survive and safely disappear from sight.

He had to be forgotten and brushed aside.

With that thought in mind, he approached Eönwë during the second year from the end of the war, for it was only then that the Herald of Manwë had at last announced his intent to depart from Beleriand. Until that time, the luminous emissary of the Valar was almost constantly occupied helping the two lesser races – at first with concern he busied himself with the releasing of slaves, soothing their woes and providing them with comfort, then he was helping the Eldar and Men bury their dead and he partook in their mourning. Soon after he supervised the destroying of every bit of machinery that was still left in Angband and made sure that not a single stone would be left unturned in the vile fortress. After that finally there came the time of great joy and feasting and there, the Heral of Manwë of course too was present.

All this time moreover it was none else but Eönwë that kept the two Silmarils ripped from Morgoth's crown in safekeeping.

Yet as soon as the dispute arose around them and they were instead located in a secluded place and mortal guards were set around them, Sauron without any surprise watched from a distance as inevitably they were stolen away from the place where they were guarded. No walls or armed guards could possibly be an obstacle to Maglor and Maedhros, the two remaining sons of Fëanor. But who were they really, to resist the same all-encompassing obsession that devoured even his divine master?

Watching them succumb to the same madness and fail, Sauron wished he could feel some joy at the fall of Maedhros or derive some of it from at least the fact that the Silmarils were at long last being removed out of sight. Yet he felt nothing for he had forced out of his being all the emotions that could get in the way of his plan.

And so as his plan assumed, two years after Morgoth's fall he set out to meet Eönwë.

Sauron had found the bright Maia in the forest. He came up to him from behind the trees and he fell to his knees before the banner-bearer and the small group of the Firstborn that surrounded him. Before that, he had made sure to put on the fairest of his forms, and it so happened that the beautiful mortal guise he chose for the occasion was the very same one that once upon a time he had donned to lure Elves into straying from their paths and in which he had led them from their woods and into the captivity of Melkor, where they would be enslaved or turned into Orcs. Yet as none of those Elves lived to tell that tale, that fair shape was in its sinister irony perfect for what the dark Maia had intended.

Sauron had of course come in ragged, torn clothes, with leaves and moss in his long, golden hair. He had come with scratches and mud on his face and with dry tears in his eyes, for he wished to seem to the Herald of Manwë as a pathetic creature, that in the likeness of a lost, wild animal for two years was dwelling in the woods, till at last choked with remorse and tears it was lured out into the sunlight by the sound of music the Eldar made on their harps.

None of Sauron's great pride suffered at that time, for pride too, he had moved aside when the completion of his intricate plan was concerned and all of this, besides, was but an act, one where every line had been practiced, every response in advance predicted – and it was indeed so, for after preparing for it in the two years that he had spent in solitude, Sauron had made sure to put up a show that was nothing short of perfect.

He cried and he pleaded, he renounced his evil ways and begged for forgiveness as he lay at the feet of the bright Maia. He wept and beseeched until the very Eldar surrounding the herald put away their instruments and begged Eönwë to forgive this poor, beautiful creature that had indeed strayed from the light once but now at last understood the error of his ways and was ready to do anything to repent for them.

This of course too was planned, for Sauron had by no means simply chanced upon Eönwë there in the woods or found him in a random company, nay, he had waited carefully to pick exactly this moment, this stage and this audience to perform his act of repentance.

For if among these Elves gathered around the herald then were any of the Noldor, or those of the Eldar that had personally suffered at the hand of Morgoth or any of his servants, the act could have been ruined. But Sauron made sure that of those among the group were none. These were the Vanyar, and not just any of the Firstborn. And these particular Eldar had moreover one more quality to them – they never fought on the field of battle but stayed behind the frontline, with the wounded.

These few before the war had known nothing but the bliss of Valinor - they had seen him never before and heard of him only in the tales of others. They were the perfect, select audience and in front of them chose the dark Maia to play his role. And they took pity on him and cried for him, just as he expected. And just as he wished for it to happen, they softened even the heart of Eönwë, who knew all too well of each and all of Sauron's many crimes.

The Herald then silenced the Eldar and spoke strictly, as he was bidden by the Valar but even from the forest floor upon which Sauron lay, pressing his face and waterfall of fair hair into the moss, he could hear in that voice and sense in its owner genuine compassion.

And in that moment the dark Maia knew that whatever scene his master had staged millennia ago in Valinor after he was for the first time chained and captured, Sauron had just beaten and outdone Melkor thousand times over.

Yet he triumphed not, at least not then and there, for nothing, not even an inner spark of victory was allowed to distract him from his act. He harkened to Eönwë as the Maia spoke and told him all those very things that Sauron had expected the herald to tell him. Of course he had known very well that Eönwë could not pardon him – no Maia of even the greatest power could ever pardon one of his own order. The trick was to plead for mercy as if despite all his intelligence, he somehow had still been foolish enough to believe it possible.

It however seemed that Eönwë believed him, for the banner-bearer told him that although he would not be the one to pardon him, the pardon could, in theory be granted – and all that Sauron had to do was to follow them back to Valinor, and there subject himself to the judgment of the herald's master, the mighty and benevolent Lord Manwë.

As those words were spoken and the bright Maia awaited Sauron's reply, there came another step of the act. There namely was one more matter to which Sauron had diligently attended before he had even chosen to at last step out of the shadows and meet the Maia. That, to be precise, was the needed assurance that during their meeting, the herald would possess a certain piece of information, quite crucial for the act.

And so he had before that meeting in the woods made sure that messengers from Valinor had first come back and reported to Eönwë of the events that had occurred in the Undying Lands. Sauron had of course not been able to come close enough to hear the words that they spoke but the information that he was after, was of such magnitude that it must have been among the news that they had brought to the banner-bearer.

Thus now, after departure of the messengers, with a greater certainty Sauron could assume the Herald to be aware of all that had happened to Melkor. This information, Sauron however also needed not for one but for two separate purposes.

First and main reason was of course that the awareness of Melkor's fate was essential for him to begin building and complementing the further part of his plan. Yet the second reason was needed still for the success of this very act.

Sauron namely expected that whatever the sentence of the Valar regarding his master was, Melkor was found guilty and his punishment was severe. Thus asking Eönwë, at the very end of his abasement before him, to learn of Melkor's fate - and knowing at once that the honest and pure Maia like Eönwë, even after all this time still either knew not how to lie or at least would see not the reasons to deny him this knowledge – would give a credible reason for Sauron to pretend to be frightened about his own fate in the last moment.

And so he asked Eönwë of Melkor's fate, calm and ready for it, yet when he heard the answer, he trembled for real for the first time. For his master, still bound in the chain Angainor, had been locked not in Mandos but thrust beyond the Door of Night and into the Void.

The herald knew not how many ages he was sentenced to spend there and as he saw Sauron tremble and look up at him fearfully, he reassured the Maia that the same fate would not necessarily have to befall him too, for it was possible for the Valar to judge that he was but a thrall to Morgoth like had others whose wills had the Black Enemy bound with his own.

Sauron begged for time to consider and he fled into the woods, seeming to Eönwë like a poor, suddenly scared creature that changed its mind at last moment - though even as it was escaping back into the shadows of the woods like a scared animal, it still reassured and promised that it will go to Lord Manwë, when only it gathers more courage.

Thus Sauron guaranteed his repentance to be seen as truthful and his absence in Valinor purely the effect of the final fear and cowardice at finding what befell his master. In that way, although he never stood in front of Manwë, nor came to seek out the herald ever again, the threat that he posed was completely disregarded. Yet to uphold this impression even further and let the Valar relax their defences, Sauron was going to remove himself from the board for a long, long while, leaving the Men and the Eldar to thrive and prosper. 

* * *

And thus began the new century in which everyone forgot about shadows and evil. Second Age they dared to call it. A new beginning was what they had wished for.

However a new beginning indeed it was meant to be, for Sauron too, had to start over and he too needed to lay from the very scratch the foundations for his master's new empire. Yet he had to do it in secret, as in order for his schemes to succeed none was to remember him or the Vala.

In the beginning of the Second Age Sauron went not into hiding but instead used his time to better plot the rise of Melkor's new kingdom and his own vengeance on the Houses of Edain and the Eldar - and he spent the following centuries walking among the Men and Elves as one of their own, taking on a guise of a mortal being. By doing so he strove to understand the subtle mechanisms of their minds, their dreams and wishes and their nightmares. He aimed to acquire this way all that was needed to later subdue them and enslave them, control them and rule them. All that knowledge he found in those centuries. For one interesting notion that he made was that it appeared that there was much more one could learn from observing the future slaves and subjects in their native habitat than watching and learning from the broken and half-mad prisoners in the dungeons of Angband.

All that walking and learning Sauron allowed himself for he knew that Melkor was not coming back soon. And thus he would rather complete his plan in ways slow and careful, as not to incite the wrath of the Valar, than be done with it quickly and then go insane from the waiting or to fail and be crushed once more by the Host of Valinor.

In that time as he strolled among the enemies and learnt of their weaknesses, Sauron began already looking for a new land to settle in. The objective was clear in his mind – he had to prepare a kingdom of Arda, powerful, reinforced and ready for his master's comeback. He had to build a new realm of darkness, better yet, have it built by the hands of slaves and followers. Slowly, century by century and carefully – subtly, for no Ainu to notice, Sauron would then spread his influence over the lands. Cities he would build, nations he would enslave and turn to evil, until there was none on Arda that could put up any fight or offer resistance against him.

That way would create the perfect, orderly world, under his dominion yet at all times ready for his master's taking.

The vision and plan were perfect. No, almost perfect. For there was but one blemish, one imperfection in it all. The flaw was that it hinged on hope, hope that even from beyond the Door of Night where he was cast out and enchained, somehow Melkor would return or that the Valar would be so foolish as to take pity on their brother and release him. Hope was not steady ground to build anything on or good enough material to build things with. Therefore it was vital to first solidify it, for was the hope to die or crumble for any reason at any given point in time before the plan's completion, it would all be for nothing, for what use was there of an empty throne? What use of an empire where there would be no ruler to enjoy it?

And so the same way he beat metal into weapons, Sauron worked on this ridiculous hope until under the hammer of his mind and thought it had become a rock-hard conviction, steady and solid enough to be now placed in the very center of his schemes.

Of course Melkor was coming back. He was after all, the most stubborn of all the damned Valar.

 * * *

Sauron had assumed that it was none else but the Edain, who carried out the mutilation of his lord's mortal body back at the end of the war. He was quite certain that it was them that had hewn the Vala's feet from underneath him back then because he had logical grounds to believe so - the Maiar, namely, aside from a few exceptions, had in them none such malice and the minds of Eldar were still closer to the ones of Ainur than those of Men. Thus while the Eldar that partook in the overthrowing of his master, he planned to subdue, the short-lived useless Edain he had sworn to destroy for that offence against Melkor.

He had decided that in the first few years of the Second Age and oh, how furious he was when three decades later, these same Edain were given a new land in the sea, a paradise of their own and long life-times to enjoy it!

But in the course of the centuries, Sauron used this rage as well, reforging it into something more substantial and useful - a new plan, more devious perhaps than all the others. And he decided that if the Valar played their card and picked their favorites amongst the Men, a day would come when he would turn the tables and in the next round of the game he would play the very same card back against them. Yet that had to wait, for now he was but a lurking shadow and a spy. He had not yet the time for games, for now merely walking amongst the mortals and those of the proud, foolish Elves that refused to follow Eönwë into Aman, where they could till the end of days of the world revel in bliss.

Learning their ways and plotting their doom. Being confident of Melkor's return then already but knowing too that many a century would pass ere that would happen, he chose not to rush and instead let the new paradise, "Land of the Star", the so called Númenor thrive and blossom for now, away from his eyes.

Of course as ages passed the island soon became too small, too oppressive for the insufferable humans and they came back to the shores of Middle-earth but he let them do that as well, turning a blind eye to them for an age or even quite a few, for by that time he was already busy elsewhere, preparing the grounds for his return in a new land, that later would become known and feared. The land of Mordor.

 * * *

The rings of power were meant to be a useful tool, nothing else. An ingenious invention, much like those that he would make so often in Angband to facilitate his own work as well as that of the others. They were to be a shortcut to triumph and in a way perhaps also his reward for all the dreadful centuries that he had spent examining the minds of Eldar and Men until he knew too much about them even for his liking.

The rings were to be an achievement crowning all these efforts, for with their assistance he would hold mastery over the Eldar and he would ensnare those minds that he understood so well in the last centuries.

He would rule them and enslave them. Better yet, it would be not him, but his own future elven thralls that would be the ones to smelt and shape the very collars, that would be later snapped around their necks – only those would not be collars, nay, not at all. This was a new age and so the ways too were new. In this age the chains were not made of clanking iron but of silent gold. Though the real shackles would be invisible completely and they would be put on minds and spirits, not on limbs.

They had to be things small and of beauty – chains and cuffs one would be tempted to try on and admire in mirrors. And what better object would there be to enslave minds that way than precious rings, that the Eldar so loved to wear?

* * *

His primary target were the Noldor of course, always eager to learn of smith craft. Yet he could not after all come to them under his own name and form. Sauron was after all gone from Middle-earth for a thousand years by that time and everyone knew that. The hated name of that one evil Maia as well as the name of his vile master were at those serene times slowly and gladly being forgotten, and the lands were peaceful. Only nameless shadows moved sometimes between the mountains, yet came not out into the light and thus were disregarded.

And thus it was in that age of bliss and happiness that he approached the elven smiths in the fairest of his guises. A new form it was that he wore on his spirit, one that none had seen before, crafted and plotted especially for the event. Annatar, he called himself, the Lord of Gifts, for gifts he was willing to give, with both hands to the Noldor, gifts that they would never discard!

He introduced himself to them not as a mortal man or an Elf but as the being that he truly was, a Maia. And specifically - the Maia emissary of Aulë, whom the Noldor in exile kept always in the highest regard from all the Valar. And indeed, being one of Aulë's most talented Maiar in the beginning of days and then still ever refining his craft as a smith in the forges of Angband, he possessed all the skill, might and wisdom that was needed to prove his alleged identity to the Eldar.

He soon promised to them the making of new Undying Lands in Middle Earth, knowing well from the long ages of scrutiny of their thoughts, that in every of the elves that chose to remain in these lands, even most proud and arrogant, there was a spark of longing for the long lost light and bliss of Valinor and Aman to where they defiantly refused to return when Eönwë, the Herald bid them to follow him back and offered them an invitation that only their pride made them reject.

Apparently learning from error of his fellow Maia herald, this fair stranger, Aulendil, offered to them not the comeback but the help building a new Aman, splendid, safe and full of wonder right there, all around them. And the Elves of Eregion fancied that vision and trusted him quickly. They received him as a friend in their land, unlike the watchful and suspicious lords of Lindon that earlier had closed their gates before him, distrusting this beautiful and benevolent stranger, who called himself Annatar and Artano - the high smith.

Now of course king Gil-galad and master Elrond would send from Lindon many messangers who spoke warnings and words of doom but Annatar just smiled and explained their envy, for he had offered the lords of Lindon the same offer before and they rejected it and now were jealous of the Noldor of Eregion.

Pleased and satisfied with that explanation which not only soothed their suspicions but also made their arrogance grow even further, the Noldor refused to heed the warnings of their kinsmen. They were enthralled by the presence of their new friend, Aulendil, always eager to learn and they fell right into his hands like once had the first Noldor in Valinor as they harkened to the advice of Melkor.

* * *

Long years Sauron had spent in their midst, being always of great assistance and giving counsel - showing them how to make things useful and beautiful, for it was substantial to have their blind and absolute trust before he could begin with his true scheme among them.

He would in those ages come and go as he pleased of course, returning in secret to his new abode in the Land of Shadow, to oversee the progress there too, for in Mordor the thus far still nameless evil once more was at work in his service. The Elves knew not of that and although many a time they would behold him disappear into the air before them and appear only much later again, none asked about the places he went to - for an Ainu he was, and thus a holy spirit whose ways were different and more celestial than their and his business was none of their own.

And they were thankful besides, for the help he was so selflessly giving - therefore none would dare to insult him with questions or demand even more of his attention and kindness.

In those years that came, he taught them how to make things beautiful and useful. And then when they trusted him and loved him like one of their own, he showed to the elven smiths led by the greatly skilled Celebrimbor, the art of making such rings as they had never seen before.

Sauron's understanding of even the thoughts and desires of the Eldar was great at that time and as he partook in the craft of the Elves and with his smooth words directed their work, he saw to it that with their own hands and sometimes with his own touch and voice the powerful and secret magic was woven into the gold.

Little did the Elves of Eregion know that as Celebrimbor still laboured alone on the last three of the nineteen rings of power, in the fires of a great mountain, Sauron was busy forging one more ring. A master ring that would bind all the other rings and enslave the wills of their bearers. Even the three last rings that the leader of the elven smiths made himself would be in fact subject to the will of the One, for though Sauron himself took not the part in their making, they still were made to great extent by following the same pattern as the ones before them – the pattern that Annatar had shown to the Elves. And thus they too were sharing some, if not overly much, of the same magic.

Into the last ring, of his very making, Sauron had poured a part of his own native power as he chanted the words of the spell in black speech - for if the One Ring was to control the other, be it sixteen or nineteen of the rings - its influence and might had to be far greater than the one of the rings subject to it.

Yet in those days the dark Maia's power was none less than it was in the end of the First Age, when he served his lord Melkor - and over the ages after his master's downfall it grew rather than diminished. And thus the power that he poured into the ring, was at that time but a part of his inherent might and he saw back then no possible consequences that could in the future arise from that deed.

The master ring was just like the other rings, it was created to be merely a useful, but refined tool. Made to assist Sauron in his designs and hasten the execution his schemes.

 * * *

When the last hour of Celebrimbor's labour came to an end and the last of the rings glittered with precious jewel and shone with silver and gold, the Elves shared the rings among themselves and they put them on their fingers, ready to – just as spoke Annatar, do things great and beautiful with the help of their magic.

Yet here an unforeseen flaw appeared in Sauron's grand design for when in his dark land he put the One Ring on his finger and with great satisfaction he found the minds of the nineteen Eldar laid open before him and ready for the taking, suddenly the link became fractured and then even more so until within seconds it was fully broken, as detecting a foreign will inside their minds, the Elves one by one removed their rings. In that very moment it was too that they understood how blind and deaf they had been not to harken to the warnings of the elven lords of Lindon.

For in that hour they recognized Annatar for who he was, and they gave the nameless evil in the mountains a new name that was in fact the same one as it was of old. They knew from that time that they had fallen into an intricate web of lies woven by Sauron Gorthaur himself and they hid the treacherous rings away, grieving their making.

The fury of the dark Maia was cold and boundless, for not only had he spent a part of his own power pouring it into an object that in one second had gone from lethal tool and even weapon to a useless band of still warm metal but he had also wasted four centuries living openly among the Eldar, as the alleged messenger of Aulë. And far, far more centuries before that walking amidst them in secret, all that to better understand their minds that now suddenly upon sensing his intrusion had became closed and guarded!

The failure of his plan was however not completely disastrous or irreversible, for though he had since long envisioned the future intertwined with at least sixteen skilled elven thralls that would help him build a kingdom for his master, and although close to all his schemes included them, he could still change his plans easily and use the rings differently, to a satisfying effect - causing not all time and power he had invested into their making to be completely in vain.

And he could do all that if only the rings could be regained.

Yet as donning on the guise of Annatar once more he came to the Noldor and asked that they give back to him the rings that they would have never been able to craft without his guidance, they closed their gates before him and refused to return them. And so before the Elves could gather for counsel or disperse and carry the rings away from their land into safety and out of his reach, Sauron dropped the fair guise that he wore for four centuries and he came with open war amongst the Eldar, releasing upon them swarms of his minions and thralls that had multiplied in secret in the mountainous land of Mordor.

They had broken into Eregion with ruin and devastation and soon lead an assault on the very House of the Mirdain where the jewelsmiths of Eregion had their workshops and treasuries and where under the watchful eyes of the guards in the smithies nine of the rings remained temporarily hidden. Celebrimbor himself tried to prevent the enemy from entry, yet on the steps of the House of the Mirdain he was captured and later put to torment, revealing to Sauron the location of the Seven. Yet of the three rings that had been forged last, Celebrimbor would not speak for he saw them as the work of his own mind and hands, crafted with a different power and purpose than all the other and he valued them over his life.

Obliging with his apparent wish, Sauron had Celebrimbor put to death and his mutilated body, riddled with Orc arrows, was hung on a pole that the dark army carried wherever it went like a banner to inspire fear in the hearts of the Eldar and in the end of it all, the Seven too he had reclaimed, yet the Three he had not found, for they had been already taken away from there and committed into the safekeeping of the elven lords in Lindon.

Ever since this, Sauron was at war with the Elves and he did not withdraw into the shadows. Time came for his name, although much too prematurely revealed, to become known once more and for the screams to echo at least for some time between the mountains. It was the time for the Eldar to reacquaint themselves with fear and to learn to respect the Maia as a foe again, if they would not have him willingly as their master.

Yet the war with the Elves became long and wearing and brought little to no progress, as the Three rings remained constantly away from his grasp. The Eldar sent their armies against him. Elves died. Orcs were killed. It was not exactly how Sauron had the conquest of Middle-earth planned or envisioned. Rather than taking the land by brute force like he would in the old times, he had intended to slowly and smoothly dominate it by cunning. He had wished for the Eldar to be yet another instrument of destruction and creation in his hands, he wished for them to become his thralls and with him build the new kingdom for Melkor on Arda.

But all they became was the victims of war, decimating his forces and then themselves dying, impaled on black swords or with their skulls crushed under the heavy boots of his warriors. And with either the resistance or death they helped the new empire grow not at all.

The only real profit resulting from the unintended violent struggle with the Eldar was that it kept Sauron's thoughts busy. Despite how trivial that sounded, it was in fact a vital advantage, for despite succeeding to entirely banish all of the more personal memories of Melkor from his soul and subsequently reshaping the image of his master into a distant star that lit his way but did not blind him - some time ago, few centuries prior to his deception of the Eldar, Sauron had found those banished thoughts trying to come back.

He struggled against them and strove to drive them out, wanting for his mind to stay ever focused and free of the impeding past. He wished for his heart to shut and become black and frozen, as that would be the most efficient and most practical – but the thoughts cared little for his wishes and once brushed aside, each time they came back, becoming so insistent that in the end they always reminded him of Melkor himself.

In that moment he always lost the battle against them.

Thus on some black nights, when he would wander alone amongst the shadows of the tall mountains, or rest in the slowly rising towers of his new realm, Sauron would give into the weakness and let himself remember.

On those nights he let the memories overcome him and in his mind he listened to echoes of Melkor's voice. He would then think on the wonders that they made, the conversations they shared and of the music they sang. Sometimes, very rarely, he would lower his defenses further yet and he would let himself fall even deeper into those treacherous thoughts.

Then he would remember neither the victories nor the defeats, not the deeds they accomplished and not the wars they waged. Instead he then would think of the closeness that he shared with his master ever since the night after the fall of Fingolfin, when Melkor sang with him in the forges of Angband, until the very doomed day when two thieves came seeking the Silmaril and by stealing it from Melkor's crown, unwittingly yet once and for all shattered the short-lived bond that he had with his master.

On those nights, giving in to the weakness and memories that he had stifled inside his heart for so long, Sauron would think about that short decade, after Noldor siege had been broken, yet still before Beren or Lúthien ever even set foot in Beleriand.

In that time, once in a while he would return from his guard duty in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves, to report of his deeds to Melkor. Yet in truth it was hardly all that he would come back to Angband for. He still remembered the feeling of the Vala's skin under his lips and the tight grip of Morgoth's black fingers in his hair when on the nights that followed those reports he brought his lord to the peak of his passion. Sauron smiled to himself as he remembered too the way that Melkor cursed himself right after, for forgetting – as always - about his affliction and tugging on Sauron's hair too hard. The Maia would sometimes kiss those black, scorched hands then, just to see the completely amusing lack of understanding flicker in Melkor's black eyes and to watch the funny frown of his lord's fiery brow as Melkor strove really hard to understand Sauron's design behind that gesture.

He still remembered how in the course of those brief ten years Melkor's complete inability to understand the concept behind Sauron's affection progressively turned the ache in the Maia's heart into relaxed amusement. Because let to touch and kiss the dark Vala and listen to his laughter, for that short decade Sauron had almost had everything that he had ever wanted.

But then, he would stir from those thoughts and he would remember where his master was. He would realize how many centuries had passed since their parting and how many would yet need to pass before they could finally meet again.

Immediately after returning from such a journey into the past, he would always try to forget it and he vowed to himself to never again think of the Door of Night and of how his master fared beyond it. And he would curse himself a thousand times over for ever letting his thoughts stray that way. For each time such a night came, it left him reeling harder and longer from the loss that he had never really allowed himself to mourn.

Each time such a night of weakness came, it left a scar on Sauron's soul and it caused the longing to slowly seep out of the back of his mind into his everyday scheming and thoughts and become like a steady, slow burn in Sauron's spirit, distracting him from his duties and plans.

He would tell himself then that he could not afford it, that it hindered his progress and delayed him. Yet in truth by thinking that was just striving to find a way of not letting himself drown in the despair and the longing that tore at his very being.

In the end he began to consider driving any memory of Melkor from his mind completely. So far he had always placed the image of his master at the end of it all - distant and unreachable like a star he had indeed envisioned him and he treated Melkor as an ultimate goal and reward somewhere far on the horizon to which all his efforts were headed.

Yet setting Melkor even in that remote role now stopped to work and so Sauron was already close to resolving to cast his master out of his mind and desperately forgetting about him. He planned to remove the goal and devoid of the objective, instead just focus on the tasks at hand, replacing the element of hope with mundane work.

He could in theory do such a thing. The minds of the Ainur functioned differently from those of the mortals. Being a Maia, Sauron could lock some things away in the recesses of his mind as he pleased and often had used that opportunity. It was just that Melkor insistently kept coming back from each of such corners.

But it could be done. Sauron simply never had the heart to really try.

And yet before he had made that decision, there happened something, that would prevent him from dwelling on the bygone days anyway.

---

Chapter End Notes

Originally this chapter was supposed to be twice longer and encompass all of Sauron's adventures and misadventures but we decided to split it into two parts, so hold your breath and ready yourself to take a dive in the sea in the next chapter! XD

By the way, we know that it is quite sad but let's face the facts, Silmarillion is a freaking tragedy XD And yet... we have some mysterious plans that we shall not yet reveal!

For now have a belated illustration for chapter 5 (Music of Angband) with Sauron being half-werewolf for no reason XDDD

We love you guys, sorry you had to wait so damn long!