The Power of an Oath by AndyC

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Chapter 1

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Maglor stared at the night sky. The Silmaril had risen again, with its promise – fulfilled when the Host of Valinor emerged from the Western Ocean and forced a landing in Beleriand.

The war had raged since that moment – a true War of Wrath, but for long years now, the front had held at the river Sirion. Morgoth’s forces, near numberless, had held the Eastern bank of the river from the main forces of the Host of the Valar.

Of course, he, Maedhros, and the pitiful remnant of their forces, were beyond the front, but there was little they could do to help. Elrond and Elros were determined that they would lead what was left of the Edain into battle at the side of the Eldar and Maiar, but it was still too soon. They were barely in their twenties.

A soft sound from behind him made Maglor turn. It was Elros, standing quiet in the darkness. His twin was not with him; the two were spending more and more time apart. It was probably for the best – they should grow into their own selves; not defined by each other.

Elros obviously wanted to speak with him, but was waiting patiently for Maglor to be ready to talk. As patient as an Elf – but he wasn’t an Elf, was he? Both he and Elrond – and their parents, for that matter – had grown to full-size at the rate of the Secondborn. Their grandfather, Dior, had been the same. Curufin had theorised – before falling at Dior’s hand – that “Any mortal blood makes one mortal.” It had the ring of truth. Which meant that the boys would grow up, grow old, and die and leave the Circles of the World, leaving him and Maedhros behind.

At last, Elros’ grew impatient. “Not-father…” he began.

Maglor nodded in acknowledgement.

“Not-father – I have a question for you.”

“Then best to ask it,” said Maglor.

“It may be – impertinent,” said Elros, his expression grave.

“That does not mean it should not be asked,” advised Maglor. “It may mean you should weigh how important it is to you, though.”

Elros closed his eyes for a brief moment. “I know,” he said, as he opened them again. “I have thought long on this.”

Long for a Secondborn, thought Maglor, but did not say it.

Elros hesitated, before speaking in a rush. “I must know, not-father. I must know – why did you do it? Why did you not forswear your accursed Oath?”

And there it was. The question that had hung between them for more than a decade. Since the Third Kinslaying, since they had slain the refugees at the Havens, driven away their mother, lost their own brothers and then, in a belated attempt at mercy (but possibly to replace their own lost twins?), taken the six-year-old boys away and raised them as their own.

Tried to raise them as our own, Maglor corrected himself, silently. The boys’ word for them: ‘not-father’ underlined that they would never be theirs.

The silence stretched out. Elros shifted his feet, uncomfortably.

At last, Maglor replied, his voice soft and lost. “We had no choice,” he said.

Elros blinked. “Of course you had a choice! It might have been… unpalatable… but…”

Maglor interrupted, his voice firmer. “Unpalatable? You mean – we could have chosen to condemn ourselves to Darkness Everlasting?”

Elros looked defiant and nodded. “Rather than murder Kin, again and again and again? Yes!”

The silence stretched out again. Then Maglor said, “It wasn’t a choice. We literally had no choice.”

“I don’t understand.” Elros looked confused.

Maglor gestured at the dirt by his side, and the lanky Elros took a seat beside him.

“Let me see if I can explain,” said Maglor. He thought for a moment. “You know the force that pulls you to the Earth? That pulls everything down? Well, if you hold something… no, maybe that’s not the best analogy. No, wait – you grew up by the Sea.”

It wasn’t a question, but Elros nodded in the affirmative.

“You knew you should beware of rip currents, yes? Pulling you out to sea, inexorable and irresistible.”

Elros nodded again. “Yes, not-father. And if caught in one…”

“If caught in one, you should swim parallel to the shore, or, worst-case, tread water and let yourself be pulled out as far as it goes, before striking out to shore when it has expired.”

“Indeed,” said Elros. “You are saying, then…”

“That the Oath is a force much like that. It exists, separate from us, separate from our wills, with a potency created when we called upon the Name in our madness, and it pulls us. Inexorable, irresistible… and infinitely wide. It pulls us out towards the Everlasting Darkness, and though we resist it – though we swim against it, as you should not swim against a rip current for you cannot resist it – we cannot hold our place. We are driven to disquiet, sleeplessness, pain – and we endure these, because the alternative is horror – we cannot swim against the current for ever. Eventually, we are pulled further out. I do not think it is the Will of The One, as Maedhros has thought from time to time, but simply like unto a law of Arda, one that we brought into being by our wills and our invocation of the Powers, the presence, and The One. It drives our very action, like the force that pulls down objects you hold up when your strength runs out.”

Elros gazed at him.

Maglor could not meet his eyes. “We fight it. We fight it, and we lose. Like starving men at a banquet, determined to let no morsel pass our lips, our wills break in time. Or when holding breath, at last gasping for air. We are the Accursed.”

He paused.

“The Self-Accursed,” he added.

Elros looked at him long and thoughtfully. “Are all Oaths like this?” he asked at last.

Maglor felt surprise. That wasn’t what he’d expected the youth to ask him.

“No – and yes,” he said. “Most Oaths do not have quite that power, but any Oath made by an Elf has some power to bind. You see, we live in the confines of the Music, the confines of Fate, unlike…”

“Unlike we Secondborn,” said Elros, his lip twitching in a half-smile.

“You know you are…”

Elros interrupted him. “Mortal? Yes, although my brother, I feel, still wishes to deny this. Yet I think, from all I have heard from you, that we are in fact blessed rather than cursed.”

“Because you are more free from Fate.”

“Indeed. And we may leave the Circles of the World. As did our grandfathers – both grandfathers. As did our uncles. And, in time, our true-father and mother, even though they are lost to us right now.”

Maglor reached out and took Elros’ hand. “My not-son, we will be with you as long as we may, and walk down your path as far as we can.”

Elros shook his head. “And yet your Oath may take you away at any time.”

“And yet that,” agreed Maglor, his heart heavy. They sat and stared into the night for a long time.

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Chapter End Notes

Once again, I have to give general credit for the direction of my thoughts, and once again, the inspiration comes from far enough in the past that the specifics elude me.

All I can say is that the thoughts behind this came sometime after reading Dawn Felagund's Heretic Loremaster blog and lintamande's The Feanorians Send Their Regards.

Both of which I commend to any reader, anyway.

The inexorability of the Oath and how it twisted their Fate - how they had chosen that Fate, but how the Eldar were held by Fate - that's a scary thought.  A thought that could indicate one of the factors in Elros' mind when he chose not to be bound by Fate and not to be tied to the Circles of the World.

That the horrors of being bound by an unwanted Fate (even if it was an originally self-imposed Fate) could well have been told to Elros by his own adoptive "father" rather leapt out at me.  Maglor is commonly regarded as a "good" Feanorian, yet he joined in all three Kinslayings, and, after a fairly weak argument, joined in a suicidal attack on the Camp of the Valar (which included yet another Kinslaying when he and Maedhros hacked down the guards).  I feel that if there was any genuine choice, even if it involved self-condemnation to Everlasting Dark, he would probably have taken it.

That he didn't meant that there WAS no choice.  That he - and the other Sons of Feanor - were so wrapped in unbreakable chains of Doom - that they couldn't break free.