Quenta Narquelion by bunn

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Silmarils and the Oath of Fëanor

Many thanks to lordnelson100 for invaluable help with the last two chapters.

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Long ago when this land had been called Thargelion, there had been a small town here, a good distance from the new coast, hidden away quietly in the foothills of the Ered Luin. There was little left of the towns and villages of Thargelion: they had burned and toppled when the earth had shifted.  Some of what remained was laced with memories that were terribly dark.

But this town had been abandoned by Elves and Men who had fled after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.  It had been lonely and forlorn, but when Maedhros spoke gently to it, it could still remember brighter days, and offer shelter to those who were most hurt: fallen roof-tiles shivering back into place, broken shutters and cracked walls shrugging themselves back together.  The art of memory was one for which a body was no great advantage, and so Fëanor worked quietly through the autumn days to call the work of Caranthir and his people back to wholeness. If anyone wondered at it, they were only surprised that Maedhros was so tireless and so thorough.

They set up shelters of wood and canvas laced with word of enchantment beside the town to make extra space, just as they had done so very long ago upon the shores of Lake Mithrim far away in Hithlum, now lost beneath the waves. There were more people here in this one place than there had ever been when Thargelion was at its height: the remnant of the March was tiny, but it was more than one small town could hold.

The Ered Luin had changed shape now, and the tall peak of Mount Dolmed was almost unrecognisable from the rockfalls that had done such damage to the Dwarf-cities. But the stream that had watered the little town was still there, if not quite in its old course, and the woods and fields were growing green again.

The divide between those who had endured captivity in Angband, and those who had only fought to destroy it was a very wide one.  They called themselves the thrall-noldor: a term that seemed to have been in widespread use in Angband, for not only did the Noldor call themselves that, but those of the Sindar of the March who had returned to the Star of Fëanor under Thangorodrim did too.

The thrall-noldor were, as they must be, distrusted.  They expected it. Most of them had encountered people under the Enemy’s hand before ever they were taken captive.  They knew that anyone who had been in Angband must be watched, and were pathetically grateful not to have been turned away.

They did not trust one another much. Most of them did not even trust themselves.

Not long after they had reached the place, Maedhros and his personal escort were out in the foothills of the Ered Luin. They were still short of workmen, since the thrall-noldor could not be given any sharp tool save small knives for eating with, and so Maedhros and the guards set around him for his safety were cutting the wood, and those thrall-noldor strong enough to help were carrying it to where it was needed.

“This seems absurd,” Maedhros said abruptly, to someone who had long ago been one of his own people in Himring, now pale and bowed.  The thrall-noldo was lifting up a handful of stakes, already lopped and bound together, to carry back to the camp. “The Enemy is fallen, and I was a prisoner in Angband myself.  If you are not allowed an axe, Drevedir, there is no justification for me to have one either.” Angruin, behind him, grimaced and shook his head.

Drevedir gave him a tired look. “Yes, lord,” he whispered harshly, head down.  The orcs had cut into Drevedir’s throat and taken most of his voice, though they had at least left him his tongue. He did not move to take the axe that Maedhros held out, and Fëanor was torn with grief to see one of his own people so cowed. Drevedir had been in Angband only for the one hundred and fifteen years of the Sun since the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. There were those of their company who had been there much longer.

Maedhros looked at him and waited patiently. After a moment, Drevedir made an effort to look up and managed to meet his eyes for a moment. “Please don’t give me an axe, Lord,” he pleaded.

“Because you think you might ... not use it on the trees?”

Drevedir’s eyes ran sideways to Angruin and to Varyar, both armoured and carrying swords and looking at him doubtfully, for all that Angruin had known him as a child, and Varyar was only three years older and his cousin.

“I hope not,” he whispered. “I can’t feel his eyes on me any more.”  

“I don’t think they are,” Maedhros said, making an effort to sound reassuring.  “The Enemy’s will broke when the mountain fell, and I have looked into your mind. I trust you to use an axe, Drevedir, as much as I can trust myself.”

Drevedir held one hand out a little, then pulled it back abruptly and set it on the bundle of stakes.  He might not have Morgoth’s dream of fear laid over him, but there was no question he was afraid. “I don’t want thrall-noldor to have axes,” he muttered. “You can’t be sure who is under his hand, who his eyes are watching.”

“Makes sense,” Angruin said, rather loudly and incautiously. “Lord, you’ve always said they can’t be trusted.”

Maedhros sighed and for a moment he looked almost as tired and worn as Drevedir.  “And yet, Angruin, you are a kinslayer three times over, Varyar twice, and I most of all, while Drevedir only fears it ... Very well Drevedir. No axes, not yet.”

He straightened and lifted his voice, so that all those around could hear clearly. He could have been their leader a hundred and fifteen years ago again, his voice filled with confidence and power.  “Drevedir, I will hear your counsel. And I will take the name thrall-noldor from you, and in return I shall give to you and to all those returned beyond hope, a new name.You shall be called the Released.”    He gave Angruin and Varyar and the others of his guard a pointed look, and they bowed, while all around you could see the Released stand a little straighter as they heard the name that their lord had given them.  

Fëanor watched them, as they carried wood slowly, painfully, to where it was needed.  And it seemed to him that although Drevedir and his fellows were indeed released from the spell of dread that the Enemy had once laid upon them, Maedhros himself was not. Darkness lay upon him, even as he tried to give his people new purpose.

It had been Fëanor himself who had forged their Oath out of fear and anger, who had quenched it in Darkness Everlasting and set it with jewels of hate. So it had survived their Enemy’s fall.

Fëanor had made the thing, thinking it a tool to strengthen quaking hearts.  He had given it to his children, and proudly, willingly, they had taken it up, as they might have taken a coronet or armring he had made for them. Now it had twisted into a chain about their necks, a serpent in the mind.

Only one of the House of Fëanor had escaped it, and he was the last of that House.

******

Celebrimbor had been riding grimly to and fro from the camp of the Sons of Fëanor, down into the new settlements that Gil-galad was establishing along the wide new waterway that was beginning to be called the Gulf of Lune. There he spoke with the High King, with Eönwë and with Finarfin, and with their stewards, about supplies of nails and tools, about bedding and clothes and places on the new ships for those people of the House of Fëanor who needed them.

On a cold grey day when the bare blackthorn trees that lined the path up to the camp were dewed with shining droplets, he rode up and found Maedhros returning with a new-killed deer.  The deer were coming back over the mountains, now that the skies were clear of the Enemy’s vapors and new green grass had sprung up across the land that had been dark.

Two grey deerhounds were running at his horse’s heel, but otherwise he was alone, save for Fëanor moving silently with him, and if they had gone up into the hills towards the ruins of Belegost while hunting, and had reached out with the art of mind for anyone who might still be trapped there, and found nothing, well, that was only what they had both expected.

“Any luck with your own hunting?” Maedhros asked Celebrimbor, turning his horse around to join Celebrimbor on the path.

“A little. Círdan and Eönwë have agreed that there should be places on the ships for all who wish to go home to Valinor, even those of the House of Fëanor who fought in Doriath — as returning travellers, not as prisoners going to judgement. I think the King... Gil-galad, I mean — will probably agree too, once he has thought about it, and Finarfin will agree if Gil-galad does. “

“But not for those who were at the Havens?”

“Do any of those who were at the Havens wish to go?” Celebrimbor asked him, not answering directly.

“Probably not. They were fools enough not to leave us then, so very likely they will go on being fools now. There are a few with family in Finarfin’s host, or back in Valinor, but... well. Not everyone is as determined as you are not to hold on to old griefs. At any rate, none of them have said they want to go home.”

“In that case, I think I’d rather not bring it up, in case it causes another round of arguments. We seem to have enough of those already.”

“Fair enough, ” Maedhros said, guiding his horse up a slope that had once been set with stone steps, but now was almost covered in a litter of old brown beech-leaves.

“I'm glad to hear you don’t think I’m a fool,” Celebrimbor said.

“Who could think that?” Maedhros said lightly. “You must be the single least foolish of the house of Fëanor. You had the sense not to take the Oath, for a start.”

“I could have tried to persuade them. In Nargothrond. If Orodreth had led his people out to join Fingon in that last battle... ‘By treason of kin unto kin’ the Doom of the Noldor went, and I gave in to it. I should have trusted you. Staying out of the battle bought them only a handful more years anyway.”

Maedhros said, “Is that what has been bothering you? You could have trusted Fingon... but very likely we would have failed anyway, with or without Nargothrond. I don’t blame you for Orodreth’s decision, Celebrimbor. Or for yours.”

“I fought against you, though,” Celebrimbor said, frowning.

“I can’t argue with your choice at the Havens. I have spent enough time since, arguing with mine.”

“Why did you?” Celebrimbor burst out. “Why the Havens? Doriath... I was half-expecting Doriath. I thought, my father — and Celegorm —  ”

“They argued for it, but don’t give them all the blame,” Maedhros said. His voice was calm, but his horse was dancing under him, picking up on its rider’s tension.

“I couldn’t believe it, when I saw you,” Celebrimbor said, in a low voice. “You know, when people asked if the Sons of Fëanor might threaten the Havens, I told them, no. My father is dead, I told them. Maedhros would not, I said, even for a Silmaril. I thought it was Morgoth, when I heard the alarm. I thought he must have killed you all, and come down on us out of the North in flames. I grieved for you, as I went for my sword. But it was you. Stalking through the flames with a bloody sword, like a nightmare that was real.”

“I am a nightmare,” Maedhros said, bitterly. “There’s no question about that. I can’t explain it and I certainly can’t excuse it. All I can tell you is that it looks like a nightmare from the inside, too.”

They rode on in silence for a little while before either of them spoke again. A thin light rain had begun, which caught in tiny droplets on Celebrimbor’s cloak, and dampened Maedhros’s red hair to brown. It was hard to see far ahead through the mist, making the path seem an oddly private place, in which only Maedhros, Celebrimbor and the horses seemed solid and real.

“I promised them, after the Havens, that I would only ask them to go against Morgoth, not their own people.” Maedhros said, breaking the silence at last. “We can do nothing more to help them, and a prince who can do nothing for his people is no prince. I am... I am concerned that I may put them at risk if we stay here, Maglor and I.”

“You can’t be thinking of attacking a Host of Valinor for the Silmarils,” Celebrimbor said flatly. “Eönwë can’t give them to you, he doesn’t have the authority.”

“They told you that?”

“I asked,” Celebrimbor said. “Of course I asked! What do you take me for?”

Maedhros considered him carefully. “A decent person, in an awkward situation,” he said, at last. “But as for Maglor, and for me — well, we only have one path we can take. We’ve been thieves since Alqualondë, anyway.”

Celebrimbor scrubbed the rain off his face, frustrated. “You can’t be suggesting I should join you? Maedhros, what is wrong with you? You don’t seem completely mad. ”

“It would be easier if I were. And you know what is wrong with me, really, if you think about it. But no, I’m not asking that. Nobody else has to get hurt, and there is no reason for us to make anyone else walk further into the dark with us. If we leave, will you take care of the camp? Make sure that those who need to go home get there safely. Keep an eye on the rest, and try to keep them out of trouble?“

“You assume that I am not returning to Valinor myself,” Celebrimbor said.

“Well, are you?”

Celebrimbor’s mouth tightened in annoyance for a moment, then he shook his head. “No. No, I am not. There’s a lot to be done, here in Middle-earth, and I have ideas about how to do it. Gil-galad is staying too, and I work well with Gil-galad, most of the time. And Galadriel: she does not wish to sue humbly for pardon for the rebellion of the Noldor or be punished for it, and nor do I.”

“I was sorry to hear of that,” Maedhros said with a twist to the corner of his mouth.  “It seems unfair — both to you, and to Galadriel.”

“I am not particularly eager to go home in disgrace, last of the infamous House of Fëanor,” Celebrimbor said glumly.  “Though, of course, if you and Maglor would only surrender, they would all be so busy looking askance at you, they probably wouldn’t even notice me.”

There was another silence. Celebrimbor looked ahead into the mist. He sighed. “Oh, all right. I will look after your company of kinslayers. My own people won’t like it, but I’ll make it work somehow. I will try to keep them out of trouble as best I can. Or at least, I will, if they will listen to me. Why me, anyway? Elrond must know them much better than I do.”

“You are the last of the House of Fëanor,” Maedhros said. “Elrond and Elros have enough to do with the Sindar and the Edain. In any case, this is not Elrond’s concern. He was their friend, but they are kinslayers: you know what that means. They need a lord, not a friend. Elrond deserves to be free of them. Free of all of us. Of course our people will listen to you. But in case they forget, I will remind them who you are.”

Celebrimbor looked as though there was a sour taste in his mouth. “Maedhros. Talk to Eönwë before you make any rash decisions. He’s not unreasonable. He’s not planning to put you in chains next to Morgoth!”

“I will send him another message, before doing anything else,” Maedhros told him, looking distant, as they came up the last slope through the trees, into the camp at last. “We always do that. We always send a message, first.”

* * * * *

Their people, particularly those who had been with them at the Havens, were not happy to see them go. But they would obey their orders: to stay where they were, and to obey Celebrimbor in all things.

Maedhros had lied to them, too.  He spoke of inevitable surrender, and made them believe he meant it; told them Celebrimbor could keep them from the judgement of the Valar, and that it would be a great comfort to their lords to know them safe and living in peace. That last part had enough truth to it to make the rest seem true as well.  They were weary, besides, after long years of war. Like Celebrimbor, they wanted desperately to believe that peace was possible.

But in one respect, he had been honest. Maedhros had promised that he would not lead them into kinslaying again, and he did not.

They stood on a hilltop, side by side, on that chill spring night under the brilliant stars, and they looked down on the great camp of the host of the Noldor. It was bright with lamps, spread far along the coast, with the dark sea beyond it sighing to itself.

Two left, of all the fair and deadly host that had come to Middle-earth pursuing Morgoth the Enemy, the thief and murderer. Two, set against all the power of the host of the Valar. Two, still swift, still deadly, for all that they were very weary, and Fëanor’s spirit, silent, watching.  

“Are you sure?” Maglor asked.

“No. No more than when we talked of it before. But it still seems to me that either we try one more time here, or....take the risk of bringing war to Valinor,” Maedhros said, unhappily.

“You still feel there is no hope they might still give us the Silmarils freely, if we surrender, submit to judgement, go into the West and wait?” Maglor asked. “Even though Eönwë said we had lost the right to them... They might still come back to us, in time.”

“They might. But do you honestly believe they will? And if they don’t, then... I’m sorry, Maglor. I can’t fight the Oath again. Not until the ending of the world,” Maedhros’s voice sounded strained, almost panicky, “I would rather be back on the cliff at Thangorodrim, than that.”

Maglor put his arm around his brother’s shoulder and held him.

Maedhros looked at him, his face outlined dark against the stars, trying to explain. “At least on Thangorodrim, there was no choice. No way I could weaken, and end up choosing to tear the world apart again. It would be one thing if I thought they would imprison us, but they won’t, not for ever, you know they won’t. They will be merciful, and then... I can’t sail back to Alqualondë, knowing what we carry with us.”  

He did not look at Fëanor as he said it.  He made no acknowledgement of him at all, and yet Fëanor knew he was not speaking only to his brother, and he was torn with grief.

“No,” Maglor agreed, in that clear singer’s voice. “There must be no more Alqualondës. No more Doriaths, no more Havens of Sirion. To the everlasting darkness doom us if our deed faileth, we said. But if it waits for us either East or West of the Sea, then let us follow the Oath and fail. We’ll find a sure road there, if we must, and better fast than slow.”

Fëanor watched them, deeply troubled. Why ever had he made the penalty of the Oath worse for the oathbreaker than it could ever be for the thief? There were two answers. The one he knew, and had known for years, was that it was because he knew the oathtakers, and had not trusted even himself. He had not understood what he had asked them to do at all.  But the other answer was to do with the Enemy, and with Darkness Everlasting, and the chain that he had set about his own neck.

They stopped on the outskirts of the great camp of the host, to steal clothes, making their way by a back way in, an inconspicuous way. Thieves indeed, in stolen gear, marked with Finarfin’s badges.

They walked quietly through the camp, avoiding the rings of armoured guards, the fences and the gates that guarded the place where Morgoth lay captive, bound by the chain Angainor.  Celebrimbor had said the Enemy was being kept in waiting for the ship that would take him into the West, to be judged there by the Valar, but if they had not known that already, they would not have guessed.  He who had been the Enemy of the World was silent, unheard, the might and horror of him barely to be felt any more, barely distinct from the darkness that ran through all of Middle-earth.

Two more Noldorin soldiers going off duty in the dim morning light, hoods over their heads against the damp sea-mist, gloved and booted against the cold. If one of them was carrying a harp, there was nothing so unusual about that, and if one of them was taller than most, well, there was nothing to attract the eye to him apart from that.

The Silmarils were not so heavily guarded as the Enemy was. Why should they be? They were hardly likely to escape. The jewels were in a tent, not far from the banners that announced Eönwë’s quarters. It had not been hard to find them. Their presence glowed with a light that could not be mistaken for anything else, a soft distinctive radiance that could be seen from a distance, even through the canvas.

There were only two guards. They were relaxed, playing at dice, and not expecting any attack. One of them barely had his sword out of the scabbard before he died under Maglor’s sword, but the second had just time to shout a surprised, desperate warning before Maedhros cut his throat.

Could they have taken the gems without killing for them? Perhaps, but once swords are drawn there are no certainties. Fëanor’s sons were more practiced at dealing death than any guard, faster and more resolute.  The guards had hesitated. Maglor and Maedhros did not.

Maglor scooped the jewels into a bag, but already they could hear running feet and cries of alarm from outside. They pulled the tent-flap aside and dodged through it, but they were only perhaps twenty paces from the tent, before they were surrounded by a ring of drawn swords.

Beyond the first ring of defenders, more and more people were pouring from the tents and barracks, hastily coming to arms in the first light of dawn, cramming on helmets, pulling on coats. Out at sea, gulls were crying, and overhead the sky was turning blue.

“Now for an ending,” Maedhros called to Maglor, and he pushed back his hood and let the cloak with Finarfin’s badge upon it fall, so that all could see the star upon his sleeve. Maglor did the same.  They circled, back to back, and the ring of swords fell back a little, and dismay came into the faces of the defenders as they were recognised. Even those who did not know much about the Sons of Fëanor knew that they were deadly killers.

And now Fëanor was seized with doubt. How should he fight to defend his sons, against the people of his brother? His sons were serving his Oath, and yet... Fëanor was mortally tired of killing, too.

“Hold!” Eönwë, Herald of the Valar came rushing out, dressed in blue and gold with his long dark hair streaming, and the growing crowd parted to let him pass through. He ran forward and then stopped, his face full of horror as he saw what was happening. He looked for a long moment at Fëanor’s sons, meeting first Maglor’s eyes, then Maedhros’s and then he looked straight at Fëanor.

Eönwë ‘s eyes went wide as he looked Fëanor up and down, and Fëanor felt as if he was somehow naked and unclean. The marks across his spirit, where Morgoth’s servant had held him back while Fingolfin fought, burned again. Eönwë was looking at them, and at the shadow of the Oath that coiled about all three of them. Was that pity in his face? This was appalling. Fëanor could not bear it. His spirit flamed out, bright and strong and Eönwë took half a step backwards. The expression on his face changed back to horror.

“Back!” Eönwë called to the defenders, dismay thick in his voice. “Away from them! Back!”

Maedhros lifted his sword in ironic salute to Eönwë . “We have taken what is ours, at last,” he said. “Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean...”

And Maglor’s voice joined his, stronger, clearer and entirely without hope:

“... brood of Morgoth or bright Vala, Elda or Maia or Aftercomer, Man now born in Middle-earth...”

Fëanor could feel himself being pulled into it too, the words of the Oath that they had made long ago, ringing out once more across the crowd, with a terrible power to it. He joined his voice to theirs, and it made an echo he did not recognise.

“....neither law, nor love, nor league of swords, dread nor danger, not Doom itself, shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor's kin.  This swear we all: death we will deal him ere Day's ending, woe unto world's end!..”

“Enough!” Eönwë cried raising his hands, and there was such authority in his strong voice that it shook the ground, and bound them all, speakers and listeners, into silence, for a long, long moment.

Almost all the listeners. For from the prison where Morgoth lay in chains, there came the sound of hideous laughter.

“Enough.” Eönwë said, again. “You have taken what is yours, you say? But by your actions, you have broken your own claim. You have killed, and killed... even now, two more lie dead. I am filled with sorrow at what you have become! There has been enough death. Stand back. Stand back, all you Elves and Men of the West. Let them depart this place.”

And the great host that was now all around stepped backwards, and made a wide path for them.

Maglor glanced desperately at Maedhros, who shook his head. And together, Maedhros carrying the bag that held the Silmarils slung over one shoulder, warily, barely able to believe it, they walked away, along the broad street that led through the heart of the camp, through the crowds, which backed away from them, watching with bright and terrible eyes.

They passed Elrond, white-faced and staring in horror by the roadside. Maglor met his eye for the briefest of moments before he looked away. No-one followed them.

“Well, that went... unexpectedly,” Maglor said, when they were far beyond the camp and all the many watching eyes, and his voice that was usually so clear and strong was choked.

“Yes,” Maedhros said, and his voice was full of despair. “Two more deaths; two Silmarils. Mercy that cuts sharper than a knife, and nothing else left at all.”

They went on walking, North again, almost without thinking, as if they had been travelling back to Himring, as if Himring were still there, still a refuge that they could turn to, and not simply a lump of rock half-lost in the sea-spray.

What was left of the land west of the mountains narrowed and became broken, as they travelled, day, after day. It was marked with huge rocks upheaved by the sea, scarred with great gashes that led down into darkness. There was a foul smell, sulphurous and sharp. This land had not forgotten Angband yet.

* * * * *

At last they came to the long arm of the sea that stretched out into what had once been Lake Helevorn, with the ruin of tall Mount Rerir looming over it, where once a dragon had coiled among the cold stones.

Where the hosts had passed south only a little while ago, already the soil was wearing away and the waves were hollowing out the land. Above them on the hillside, great rents in the rock puffed out smoke and sometimes even a little flame.

“We could go up into the mountains a little and go further North that way,” Maglor said, frowning. “But where are we going, really?”

“I don’t know,” Maedhros said, and he sat down on a rock and buried his face in his hand.

“I suppose,” Maglor said, “We might as well have a proper look at them, after all this time.”

He knelt on the rocks next to his brother, took the bag and opened it. The light from the Silmarils was like evening on a summer’s day, but brighter. It was strange to see the light of the Trees again, gleaming out of the distant past onto this desolate, ruined shore. Maglor reached in, and picked up one of the gems.

Then he swore, pulling his hand back in pain, and dropped it.

He looked up at Maedhros. “It burned my hand!” There was a wide red angry mark across his palm, bubbled and blistered at the edges, and the skin was torn where he had flung the stone down. Fëanor stared at it in shock.

“Ah,” Maedhros said flatly. “I thought it might.”

“You could have warned me!” Maglor found a rockpool and soaked his blistered hand.

“They burned him, too,” Maedhros said. “Morgoth, I mean. Every time he wore his iron crown. You could see it, the way they hurt him. They abide no evil... I told him, that first day I was his prisoner, I stood there all defiance, and I told him that they would always pain him, because he stole them, because he killed for them, and because he deserved to burn. I wonder if he’s still laughing, back there in his chains.”

“So here we are at the end of the story. We’ve sold everything we had for two jewels we cannot touch.” Maglor laughed bitterly.

“One for me, and one for you.”

Maedhros stood up, and picked up one of the Silmarils in his left hand. You could see it burn him almost at once, the flesh turning red, then black, but he did not drop it.  Fëanor stared, caught in immobility by horror. He held it cradled in both hands: the flesh hand and the silver one, and he walked up through the rocks, up onto the hillside that was falling into the sea, until he came to one of the great volcanic holes. The red light coming from inside mingled with the light of the Silmaril on his face.

“I deserve to burn,” he said, although Fëanor, watching, was not sure if he said it loudly enough that Maglor could hear through the sound of the sea and the hissing of the fumes from the vents. And he leapt, down into the flame in the heart of the land, still holding the Silmaril. The flames roared up to greet him.

Maglor, far too late, leaped to his feet and ran after him. He left the Silmaril lying there on the rock, beside his harp. Fëanor went with him. But Maedhros was gone.

 

*******

It was a long time before Maedhros’s spirit came out of the rock.

Maglor had retreated by then, back to the shore below. He scooped up the last Silmaril in the bag that Maedhros had used to carry it, and swung it in his unburnt hand. Then, with a wordless shout of fury, he flung it into the sea. Then he curled up, arms around his knees, watching the surging water. Fëanor could see his hands clenching, convulsive, and wondered if he was thinking of diving in to retrieve it, or simply throwing himself into the waves to be lost himself. Perhaps it was both at once.  He could feel the pull of the Oath calling to the stone himself, pulsing through the moving waves.

Maedhros’s spirit was soot-black, and it moved haltingly, even though of course, it was only his body that could burn. His hand was still missing.

Fëanor looked on him and with a great effort restrained himself from pointless questions : what did you do that for? he wanted to ask, and if you were going to throw it away anyway, and go to Mandos, why not just take the ship ?

Instead he said, I’m sorry I got you into this .

Maedhros’s spirit did not seem to be able to speak, although clearly it perceived him, and it swayed in fear away from him. Fëanor could hear the summons to Mandos sounding, above the cries of the gulls, but Maedhros did not seem to hear it. He crumpled up on the rock, as Maglor had done, but less defined; a pool of sooty black that was already beginning to drift away like smoke.

Oh, no , Fëanor said. No. Don’t fade into nothing. You are so much more than just your Oath. So much more than Silmarils. I love you. Your mother loves you. Please , Fëanor said, first to Maedhros, and then more generally to the world around him. Please . The summons faded, and was gone.

He picked up Maedhros’s ragged, reluctant spirit and carried it down to the waves. Spirits had no weight, but this was like trying to carry smoke. It took all the discipline of Fëanor’s fierce spirit to hold his son together and get him there in more or less one piece. He could not see that it would be possible to carry him all the way across the water, even if, without the summons to follow, they were allowed through.

He looked out across the water, at the gulls balancing on the wind. You helped him once , he said, remembering.

“The Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains,” That was what Mandos, Doomsman of the Valar had said to them, in that terrible voice, after Alqualondë. Fëanor had believed then that was the absolute truth. He had believed, too, having lost his own father to the Halls of Mandos, that it did not much matter.

But then there had been the Eagle. The Eagle had come to Thangorodrim for Fingon the Valiant. But it had come to help him save his friend Maedhros, too.

Fingon had gone to Mandos years ago.  Fëanor was sure of that, he had seen his empty and forgotten bones. Perhaps if Maedhros could only follow him, there might still be healing for him there. It was the only thing that might possibly help.

You need to go to the Halls of Mandos , he said to his son, desperately. Your brothers must be there already. It was true enough: Caranthir, Celegorm and Curufin, Amrod and Amras had all died far from Angband.  The call to Mandos had come for Maedhros; it would have come for them. But Maedhros was in no state to make that journey. His smoky spirit wavered and seemed about to drift away and vanish into nothing.

Fingon is there. He’ll be waiting for you.

That seemed to be the right thing to say. His son’s fraying spirit came together, just a little, and seemed to turn its head to look West across the water, silent.

Please. ..

One of the seagulls considered him from a rock, head on one side, yellow eyes bright. It was an ordinary gull of the seashore. Not an Eagle, not any great bird of meaning and doom. Just a seagull, with a green gummy strand of seaweed stuck to one yellow leg.

And then it winked at him. And it came swooping in, in a swirl of grey and white feathers, to pluck the burnt and fading spirit from his arms and carry him away West, over the sea, flying low over the water but straight as an arrow.

Fëanor stood there for a long time, even after even the sight of the dead could no longer pick out the bird against the grey Northern sky.

* * * * *

Fëanor had never been in the habit of praying to the Valar. He had talked to them sometimes, of course, but praying? It seemed an odd idea, like praying to a helpful neighbour, or to a cloud. But very occasionally he had prayed to the One, although Eru had never answered him in words.

I take it back , Fëanor said now, to Eru, if he was listening. I take it back, the Oath. If I could unswear it, then I would.

He waited, but there was no reply.

I know it’s late. I should have seen it long ago. I should have seen it when first I saw Angband, and the Balrogs and their armies across the plain. Or if not then, when Fingolfin came out of the Ice, and I saw how much I had not understood him. Or when my sons began to die, and I knew I had driven them to their deaths. Or when Maedhros forswore the Oath and I saw it bite into him.

Fëanor thought, for a while, while Eru listened, or perhaps he did not listen at all.

I should have seen it before Alqualondë. If only I had seen it before Alqualondë.

I can’t make it as if the Oath never was. But I can break it.

At least... he remembered that he had been too confident, too many times. At least, I think I can. I swore to you, Eru. If you want this Oath kept unto world’s end, now is the time to say so.

He waited. The sea sighed on the rubble and broken rock. Far away, he could hear Maglor’s harp, playing one single note left-handed, over and over.

Perhaps this is the world’s end. Or one of them, anyway. It would be very orderly, to design a world with only one end to it. Very precise. Mandos might design a world like that. But Mandos did not design the world. Would Eru make such neat designs?

He looked out to sea, into the west, where a great grey mass of cloud shining against the blue was casting shadows of infinite variety across the moving surface of the water.

Would even Manw ë , Lord of the Winds, or Ulmo, Lord of Waters, work to build a world so neatly, so mercilessly, that there could be only one ending to it?

When you really know how to make something, don’t you always learn when you can bend the rules?

He took up the spirit-sword, and considered it carefully, running invisible hands down the keen blade.

I am a maker, too, Eru. And what I have made, I can end. He considered for a while longer. Please? he added .

Then he began to work with words, and song, and the fire of his own spirit, with the burning rivers of rock far below the ground, the winds above it, and the strength of the green waves, surging on the shore.

And at the end of it all, the spirit-sword and the armour of his spirit was gone, and the Oath of Fëanor and his sons was undone into a thousand thousand black strings, like pieces of seaweed on the strand. And the sea came in and washed them all away, to tumble in the green tide and be lost forever.

* * * * *

Fëanor watched his last living son, for a little while, and he wept.  He had found the trick of weeping even in death at last, and it was sorely needed.

Maglor was still sitting by the sea, looking at the water, still. But he was sitting with the harp on his knee, and he was at least picking out phrases now one-handed, groups of notes that flowed together like the waves. It was a desperately sad and lonely music, but it was music.

There was nothing else that Fëanor could do, except to turn and leave him behind, free of his oath at last.