that which is given by Fernstrike

that which is given

Read that which is given

Tyelperinquar knew Annatar was keeping something from him.

 

He'd known it for some days now. A look out of the corner of his eye, sharp with the light of a world beyond that which was incarnate, when they had finally put out the fires of the central forge after days of gruelling work, spinning Words into carefully synthesised alloys and setting gems filled with intent. An excitement beneath the contentment and accomplishment when they had gone to the gardens to take deep full breaths of the mid-Spring night air, rich with the sweetness of fragrant columbine, and then sleepily toasted their good work over tea of lemon and cloves. A genuine smile - not the self-assured grin he had long taken to wearing and they had long grown accustomed to - that lingered on his face when he was drawing up designs for that dream structure of his, all walls upon walls and cascading arches with nearly no thought for structural integrity or wind speeds at the height he was calculating for.

 

The ingenuity will present itself when the time is right, he'd said the first time Tyelperinquar had pointed out how unsound the central load bearing columns in the mid-section of the main spire were. The variable substances will be created and produced; the materials will be forged; the seismic effects will be accounted for; the rules will be bent according to our will and vision. We just need the right force to make it happen, the tools to harness it.

 

Tyelperinquar may have once prodded him with the notion that one cannot simply dictate to the natural laws what they should or shouldn't do. But too many decades - no, centuries, by now - had passed for him to believe what he once might have. They had already forged the first sets of rings, the first great endeavour in amplifying natural will - and more than that, translating it into thought that could be bent upon matter as the hammer could be brought upon heated, pliant metal. Seven perfect circles, each more precise than the last, and then nine more, incorporating the deepest, most complicated geometries into the very heart of the compounds that constructed them. It had been done in a way that bound Tyelperinquar's conscious mind in such horrible knots that the only way to access and use these designs - the way Annatar had taught him, slowly, carefully, over time, in the workshops warmed from the forge, and among the holly trees tipped in frost in winter, and by the myriad burbling fountains built with the wit and imagination of the Brotherhood to please the overworked senses - was to give himself over to the mind beyond thought, to the Song in the Words.

 

It was difficult. It was exhausting. It was painful, sometimes. But the result was truly a gift, for even what they put in to make them was far exceeded by what was received in return - the true brilliance of creation, a brilliance Tyelperinquar had only thought he'd known before making the Rings. It was difficult not to believe in the dreams of impossible towers and feats of the imagination when the tools had been forged, the substances had been extracted, and the result could be kept upon a velvet cushion in the vaults of Ost-in-Edhil.

 

Even after that, he suspected there was something more dwelling in his friend's thought, the heavy, intoxicating cloud of creation that begged to be put to work. He just didn't know what, exactly, it was - and somehow, after all these years, it just served to make him more fraught with excited nerves at the sheer possibility of it all. He would give voice to it in due time - there was nothing he kept that wasn’t in the end given, and it was never hidden out of suspicion or malice, but because its form in his thought was incomplete, or he wanted Tyelperinquar to uncover it himself.

 

But he was keeping something from Annatar, too, and he was not sure the same philosophy could be applied to his own hesitation.

 

Now, waiting by a small fountain of marble daffodils, the water falling playfully from their nodding heads, in the gardens along the path they often walked on, he wrestled with the notion of whether he should impart it. The idea had been eating away at him for some time now, and surely Annatar had sensed it. Perhaps he had seen it in his thought, as they were wont to do now with their minds so often thrown open to unfetter the scope of their work? But surely he would have said something, then. Maybe that was what why he had asked to meet here, today, away from the activity in the heart of the guild where they could discuss with open minds and hearts what was to be done. Maybe he agreed with it.

 

The concept itself wasn't exactly beyond what they’d discussed; yet it was not precisely what they had been doing with the past sixteen rings, either. He was still waiting for a second pair of trusted eyes - those of Saelon, the best mathematician in the Brotherhood - to go over a specific proof he had laid out; an equation that could have been applied to any great project, but if the logic was sound, would be integral to this one. It was something he had been thinking about ever since they had crafted the lesser rings in their early attempts, and Eirien - the one among them most curious about the isolation and application of natural compounds - had brought up the idea of using these compressed conduits of intent on their gardens and orchards. A source of relaxation and often inspiration, these fragrant, colourful clusters spread across Ost-in-Edhil broke the endless landscape of holly surrounding the city.

 

Imagine if all these flowers could be evergreen, too, had been the concept she imparted. Imagine if we could, ourselves, cultivate the clove we trade from the Númenoreans, or the cinnamon from Harad!

 

And now - after what they had achieved - the idea had grown in Tyelperinquar’s mind and turned itself into a hundred different shapes and changed into something exceptional.

 

He just wasn't sure if this was the kind of madness Annatar had come to expect from him - and whether saying it aloud would crush the idea before it had even taken wing. More than that, a nameless doubt gnawed at him, and bid him bite his tongue. For his intent, for his skill, or for Annatar’s reaction, he knew not.

 

He hadn't long to think on it. There was a soundless movement, a whisper from beside a clump of asphodel on the path, and Annatar was there. Gold and white and sharp and tall as a gleaming spire, he glided over in that distinctly unnerving way that reminded Tyelperinquar - though he rarely forgot it - that this was neither elda nor atan, but a being beyond any incarnate like he, that had crafted and sculpted a fana so exact and perfect that it shouldn’t be true, and yet was. It showed, sometimes - an unexpected gleam of teeth, or a trick of the light that made his eyes, sometimes seeming to be more than two, burn feverishly bright, as if breaking free of the cage he’d built to house them. Today, his fingers appeared but for a moment to have one more joint than necessary, as he gently trailed them across something blue cradled in his hand. His easy smirk melted into that genuine smile, and warmth spread through Tyelperinquar as he rose.

 

“And here I’d been led to believe the rooms we’d made up for you were redundant,” he said by way of greeting. They had long since foregone old formality. That was not how they worked with each other anymore.

 

“Are they indeed?” he said lightly. Tyelperinquar saw now that it was a clump of blue hydrangea in his hands, bright and blossoming, likely plucked from the shrub that grew at the end of this path.

 

“The apprentices looking after the tower said you went up yesterday at sunset after we’d cooled the forges, and didn’t come down until dawn. I do believe that’s the first time you haven’t indulged in midnight debates in the Great Hall.”

 

“Alas, were it only exhaustion keeping me ensconced.” His eyes dropped from Tyelperinquar’s, and suddenly uncertainty pierced his heart. Though rare, over time Annatar had begun to let a little of himself show through. Tyelperinquar reached out with his thought, and indeed, the doors now were shut. Annatar shook his head, and looked up with eyes guarded and dark and - if his heart spoke true of what he saw - deep with regret.

 

“It would be too muddied and bewildering to share. My words must suffice.” He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was the gentlest Tyelperinquar had ever heard it. “I am leaving today.”

 

Something cold and unpleasant spread through Tyelperinquar then, turning grey the warm mid-morning light, and he fought the urge to take a step back. He found he could not speak. Not of the idea he’d been so concerned to share or cloister. Not even to ask him to go on.

 

“There is something I am called to do. I must heed it.”

 

Tyelperinquar stared for a moment, feeling more shut out than he had ever been with the closed mind and the eyes showing nothing but a soft melancholia. A bitterness rose suddenly in him, one he didn’t stop to analyse before speaking, but let be swept up by the sparking flame inside him that he more often put to his work. “You are a servant of the Powers, after all. I understand.”

 

Annatar’s eyes blazed at last with something clearer, and Tyelperinquar knew he had struck a nerve. He didn’t know if that was what he intended, to provoke some reaction to match his own. Perhaps it was.

 

“This is no summons from across the sea,” Annatar said evenly, but his voice was now taut and carried a chill. “You well know the voice inside that Sings and demands things of you, ideas to manifest, dreams to realise.” His tone softened, then. “And you know as well as I, if not better, that the best of those things that are created ought to be shared rather than hidden.”

 

“But elsewhere,” he replied, still unwilling to let go of the sense of impending loss that was already starting to thrum hard in his veins. "After everything you helped us with, everything you shared…"

 

"It was given freely. Perhaps one day you'll find there's something you want to give, too. But for now, I must go. I will be back. You have my word on that.”

 

For a moment, Tyelperinquar wanted to blurt out his idea. The third set, the new formulas, the next project, anything to make him stay a day longer, an hour - but the words wouldn’t form themselves on his tongue. And he knew, in his heart of hearts, no plea would make him stay. That was not his way. Not the way of one chasing an idea. He knew that. He saw that same drive in himself, and little would prise that need from him. And it was because he understood that it hurt so much more.

 

Tyelperinquar searched his face, and then - for the briefest of moments - Annatar opened his mind, letting Tyelperinquar glimpse it. It was a scatteration of concepts - the dreams of the world they would build with the Rings, the soaring ridiculous tower gleaming in the sun like a beacon, uncounted faces upturned to the sky and the clouds tipped with silver linings, Annatar reaching for them, as they all were, as they all had ever been doing - and there was one underlying theme in the images and sounds and sensations. Promise.

 

“One last gift from me to you,” Annatar said, the words coming softly and distorted as he closed his mind once again. He reached forward and opened Tyelperinquar’s hand, laying the blue hydrangea across his calloused smith’s fingers.

 

“You’ll come back.” It was a statement, begging affirmation or denial, to be proved by how it was taken.

 

“To open doors still, I hope.”

 

A pang of relief eased the vice around Tyelperinquar’s heart. “That is our way" My way. "You don’t need to fear that.”

 

“That sends me away more content than I was,” Annatar said, another smile gracing his lips. “I leave at sunset. You would honour me by being there.”

 

Tyelperinquar snorted softly, nodding. “Did you ever doubt?”

 

Even as he said the words, he was not himself sure what he meant. In fact, he was not sure he could count how many different things he meant. He opened his mind, letting it speak for him. Annatar met his eyes steadily, and Tyelperinquar knew that he could count them, and he could understand all of them.

 

“Not ever,” he said. And then he was walking back down the path, leaving Tyelperinquar alone by the burbling fountain.

 

When night had fallen, and Annatar was gone, and the rest of the Brotherhood had retired to the Great Hall to sit by the fire and lament the departure of one of the Holy Ones, Tyelperinquar went to his workshop. Only Eirien had looked to his leaving their cluster, concern in her eyes - they all knew well enough how closely he and Annatar had worked across the years - but only to ask whether they could expect to see him tomorrow in the workshop, to look over the schematics of a new project. He knew what she really meant - will you get through the night well enough, and can we expect to have to knock on your door in a few days’ time if you’re to cut yourself off from us to recover?

 

He had replied with the affirmative, if only to ease her concern, and departed.

 

He lit the candles around his cluttered work space, aimless, uncertain where to go from here. The fire in him had not gone out - it never could - but it was guttering as if caught in dark winter gales, and he wanted nothing more than to sit down with a bowl of tea, lay a blanket over his legs, and wait out the storm. He very nearly had begun the process of preparing this when he saw the tightly wrapped package set upon his work table, hidden by stacks of diagrams and rulers and pencil stubs. It was the sheaf he had sent earlier to Saelon, with the proofs. He plucked out the note on thick card stock that had been slid under the twine binding it, a neat message written across it in green ink.

 

Went through everything. Looks perfectly workable to me. Added a couple of suggestions as far application goes, but will be usable as is. Are these for new rings? Let us know if/when you plan to get started. Set III should prove somewhat different if you use this.

 

For a moment, Tyelperinquar wanted to cast the note to the floor, and the sheaf also, and not look at them. But that was not his way. A guttering candle could be protected from the elements, and so had the perils of his own heart always been shielded by the workings in his mind. This time would be no different.

 

There was some good news today, in the end. Something to work towards. A dream for him to pursue, also. He placed the hydrangea on the corner of his work table, in a patch of moonlight filtering colours through the prisms on his windowsill, and put to use the first, least painful gift Annatar had given him - knowledge. He pulled out from behind a messy drawer of plans one tightly wrapped scroll, covered on both sides and from edge to edge with notes, calculations, amendments, scraps of ideas and concepts appended to it, drafts of Words, diagrams of gem facets, and three perfect circles at its heart.

 

If he could manifest exactly what he had envisioned in these last three rings, perhaps one of them would be a worthy enough gift of his own when Annatar finally returned.

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Chapter End Notes

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