Jail-Crow by lonelyvisitor

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Chapter 1

This is my conception of an excerpt from the Noldolantë of Maglor, done (sort of) in the style of a free-translated Homeric epic, though without any proper meter. It features Fëanáro and Melkor at the gate of Formenos. From Maglor's point of view, though marginally.  

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'Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!'

- Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 7

 

~*~ 

In fair guise came he now to the gates, at the gloaming-time of

Telperion, and called the jewel-wright’s name.  Fëanáro,

there in his forge, our far-eyed father, perceived his dark intent

though imperfectly.  He rose in wrath, leaving his bench

and new-pressed swords, to stay the fiend who now spread blight

among his rhododendrons.  “Blackheart,” he cried,

“get off my lawn.  What you hope to gain by loitering I cannot say. 

Formenos I close to all, save my father, my sons, my lady wife,

certain of our kin who do not offend.   And you, you of all

who walk freely amidst the design of our creator, you I hate

unceasingly.  Leave.  That perfume on your wrists masks

a most unwelcome scent.”

 

The dark one laughed gently, raising the pall of shadow-matter

in the form of thin white hands.  “Curufinwë! I bear no malice

to the gates of your great stronghold.  Will you not

acknowledge our strange kinship?  Surely when the world

was made, when fire splintered, of the flames that rushed

to embody yours-truly, some must have circled

the later-coming spirit, around the germ of Fëanáro.  I know

how it is, being an autodidact,   suspecting your strength

to smash the design – you knew from the beginning, when

you burned up in your mother’s body, breaking her spirit

to fold into your own, the hungry furnace.  A fine

business model!  The Silmarils turned out nicely. 

Though they don’t seem to get much press, not these days.

How fares their radiance, secreted away in some

uncrackable safe of your making, wreathed in cold chains?

Of late you seem to favor iron, as a medium, over gems.”

 

The fiend had come to stoke the flames. So Fëanáro steeled.

“And your presence unwanted,  here on my doorstep,

proves metalworking just.  The time may come when I must

craft anew the shackles Aulë forged, that manacled you

in the everlasting Void.  Were that you writhed there still.” 

Our father held the gate, his words sharp and hard

as diamond-blade. 

 

The god lowered that falsely handsome brow, leveling

a gaze fickle as greasefire to meet the dark-glinting eyes  

of Fëanáro. “Strange to speak of shackles, jewel-smith, for last I heard,

you are under house-arrest.  And doubly so!  For even as

your dear half-brother holds the happy city, Tirion on the hill,

in your father’s place, while you and your horde

are holed up banished, out of the sights of gentle society,

the whole blessed continent is your prison.  This I know

you perceive, in that spit-hot heart of yours.  You, your brave

young sons, all your people, tethered to this precious

pleasure-garden,  your forefathers dragged here

unwitting, when they barely knew the world, when the great

dark hunter took them, and they followed dumbly,

afeared of sudden shudderings, moving shadows.  To this day

the Valar herd you,  like so many sacred cows.  And you,

the greatest of the lot,  are deemed delinquent, in the eyes

of the dour lord of death – it’s a pity, he’s so terribly inflexible

about his proclamations.”

 

Like a dark braid his speech twisted.  Our father shook,

staying the wrath  that clenched at mind, heart, hands – useless 

they were, against he who warped the theme of God

before the world’s beginning.  “When I left the hill

of Túna it was of my own accord, unheedful of the feigned pardon

of my father’s second son.  So did my father, my seven boys,

all willingly.  The command of Mandos we heed.

Yet the choice is our own, to live apart, far from the

intrigue of court, and the circles that you, they say,

have come to infiltrate, currying favor from

the petty lords, the hobbyist jewelers, all eager for

your snake-oil counsel. Your poison-tipped mockery

may pollute my halls, but it does not cloud my head. 

You will not breach the mind or walls of Fëanáro.” 

 

The dark visitor spoke again.  “Your pardon, prince. 

Verily, I had to no aim to hurt you pride.  For you see,

I only wish to endorse your revolution!  And forgive me

if I’m being sentimental, but you must it admit, it bears

some semblance to my own – in mechanics, if not

in ambition.  Forgive me, for I was only musing

that I might assist in some trifling manner – perhaps

transoceanic passage? For am I not Vala, too, akin to them

who now trammel your powers?  You say you are free,

fire-spirit, here in the foothills, and content to be

working your craft obscurely, pushed to the margins

of this narrow land.  Yet the world is wide.

Rightfully would you rule over a wide swath of it,

building great halls, mining the earth for

material new and strange.  Yea, your art is great, 

but there would it be perfected, out from under

the thumbprint of the gods.  You it would be

who would carry the light of the Trees

to the lands across, living in your jewels – why,

you’d have it all, son of Finwë.  Just think of me

as a patron of the arts,  a great admirer of your work,

and I’ll give you that little push out the door, for it seems

I’ve already brought you to the threshold.”

 

What stirred Fëanáro’s mind, then, none may know, I least

of all, who never saw so clearly into him as our mother, or you,

fellow brothers, who were hotter of heart.  He fell silent

before the tempter, whose cunning words so recklessly

mapped a world.  So Melkor – who can smell uncertainty

like smoke on the wind,  delicious as the rising ash

of burnt offerings – curled the lips of his mask.  He issued

the fated challenge. 

 

“If indeed you are as bold as were your words, upon

your sortie from Tirion, then you would heed me, lord. 

They have not the right to hem you in, those figureheads who 

figure themselves authorities, proclaiming from lofty thrones. 

Heed me, not for yourself, for your seven strapping scions,

but for the fruits of your heart, the sacred Silmarilli.  Think not

that they lie safely within the bounds of the fair land, for the Valar

watch in secret, and ever have they feared you, and begrudged

your prowess, your mastery of the craft.  Deep as

your treasuries lie, their sight pierces all.  Who may know

what they devise, aloof of your father’s people?  Mark me, Noldo.

The day will come when they claim them for their own.”

 

Then like hammerstrike, like thunder on the mountains,

the brief bewitching ceased, our father’s eyes flashing, as he

forgot all fear.  With this last lie the fiend had nicked

a nerve too deep.  For away fell the fine raiment,

the countenance young and fair, and there stood a being

all of vacuum, a dark fell shape, and radiant with greed,

crowned with flame and shadow.  Fëanáro saw,

and arose in wrath, so awfully the enemy himself now

shrunk away, shielding his tattered cloak from

the pure-burning spirit, so was he caught unawares

in his foul disguise.  “So you would deceive me, and turn me

from my gods.  I grieve that chaos is planted so easily

in the hearts of Tirion, yet mark me, villain, that the world

may break, the skies shatter above us, and never will I relinquish

the Silmarils, for first would I give my life, and all

my seven sons” – so he dooms us, one of many dooms

to follow, all in a row, like birds plucked out of

the sky, doomed to hunt, and be hunted by doom.  No matter.

Our father spat on the silken slippers of the deceiver.  “Get thee

far from my home, you sunken convict of the gods.  I will not

ask again.”

 

So did the fiend depart; so were our days of peace numbered. 

~*~