Before the Great Music: An Account Before the Ainulindale by Alcarin

Chapter 2 Down Into the Void

Melkor treads the eternal nothingness of the Void, and discovers an irrefutable truth.

DOWN INTO THE VOID

He drifted into the sea of darkness about him. He knew not how long he had wandered, only that it was long. Long beyond reckoning. But not forever, as he could never hope to endure an eternity of this. For now, he was no longer looking at the Void, but was in the Void itself. And the deeper he tread it, the more he sensed there is no end to it.

Then suddenly, as one abruptly awakened from deep slumber, Melkor halted, and held fast where he was. He closed his eyes. He noticed not the difference, for in the Void it mattered not whether one’s eyes were open or shut, as all sight becomes blind within its enclosing darkness. But he opened his mind. And he strained his thoughts over his surroundings, hoping perhaps to overreach the edge of this nothingness. He stretched his thoughts and awareness farther out into the Void, hoping beyond hope to find the final resting place of the Flame Imperishable, or, at the very least, an end to this infinite waste.

But there was nothing.

No light, no sound, no end. Only nothing.

And beyond this was an even greater expanse of the same nothingness.

He opened his eyes, and turned now his thoughts into the direction of where he had last left the Timeless Halls. But he could no longer see or sense it, not even the thoughts of his peers. There was no sound save for the silence of the darkness.

It was then in this utter solitude that Melkor realized a new thing: He was alone. He was now, in every sense of the word, truly alone.

For through ages uncounted he had dwelt with beings of similar powers and nature in the Timeless Halls. And though in those days, he had already chosen to often dwell apart from his peers, he at the least could sense the company of his brethren, though very little love he bore for them.

But now, he was utterly alone.

In his mind, he knew that they existed, and that there in the Halls of Eru, they were blissful and joyful and content. Yet here, there was only himself –– and the void about him.

Then slowly, like the Night of the Void, he felt disappointment creep like a shadow in his heart. For his hope to see the fulfillment of his long held desire, to create Being out of Nothing, seemed now ever more wasted and in vain. For in his pride and desire for greater power and ascendancy over his peers, he had begun to covet the power of his Creator. And in his impatience, he had conjured thoughts unlike those of his fellows, believing ever that the Flame Imperishable is a power that can be found, held, and wielded at will. And in his fascination with the Void, he had thought it to be the ultimate repository of the Secret Fire, thinking ever that Eru had begrudged him that power.

now, looking out into the endless expanse of nothingness before him, Melkor at long last had come to realize the limits of his own power, and in this measureless sea of darkness he felt ever more diminished, for he had now come to understand that the Void is an emptiness beyond the power of any being to ever completely fill, lest it be Eru himself.

But he, Melkor, was not Eru.

And knowing this threw him into an ever greater feeling of unrest, for now he realized that here, he could never hope to find the Flame Imperishable, or, if it indeed be hidden by Eru in the farthest reaches of the Void, then he could never discover it, for the Void is Darkness made Infinite.

Seeing as now all his hopes and desires utterly quenched, his disappointment now turned into a deep frustration.

And so, like the Discord in the Great Music which will soon come to pass through him, and like the poison of lies and hate he had sown among the Children of Iluvatar, the seeds of hatred and malice had now been sown in the Dark. Into the very heart of Melkor.