The Eastern Sea (III) by Gadira

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The Eastern Sea

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For Yehimelkor, it is becoming difficult to kneel, to lie on the cold floor at nights muttering his prayers. His old bones ache under the purple of his robes, but the worst of all is when he stops and feels that he cannot hear the answers anymore.

Once, Amandil had used to tell him that he should not humiliate himself this way at his age. He listened to him, shaking his head in vague condescendence, and sometimes graced him with an answer.

He is the last High Priest. He has abandoned the capital to the spinners of lies.

He cannot humiliate himself enough.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

People whisper around Rómenna, he knows, telling horrible stories about him. They say that he is sullied, his soul sold to Evil, and that he brings bad luck to the place. And still, no one is able to meet his stare, and whenever he passes by they turn their faces away.

Yehimelkor does not care for the opinion of people who cannot even look at him.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

Sometimes, in the few hours of sleep that he allows himself, he dreams. He sees the temple again, and his eyes on him, bright like liquid fire. His fury, and the silent promise of murder as both stood at the fire altar.

He wishes he could have said much more.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

See? I warned you. A great evil would come from war. Darkness would be stirred in Middle-Earth, long and terrible. Back then, you did not understand why I forbade you to engage in sword-waving, but this is what I saw in my visions, this what consumed my mind day and night.

It might well be, Amandil replied, but at least now I know how to fight it.

Self-absorbed brat. 

*      *      *      *      *

 

He left at night, when the full moon was rising. His ship was anchored in a lonely beach, and when he told Yehimelkor of his plans, the old High Priest had flown into a rage. You are insane, he told him. Not even your volatile gods can approve of a man who gives his life away.

Amandil had not argued back. He had merely withstood the storm -as he did many years ago, when he left him for the first time-, and pleaded with him to see him off. No one else would be there.

Yehimelkor had refused to speak to him for days, but in the end he had come. After all, this self-appointed “leader of the Faithful” was his only child.

Since that day, nobody has helped him up from the floor.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

The dark cloud is on Númenor now. He can perceive it, perfidiously suffocating his breath in the middle of his chanting litanies. No sword can pierce it now, and not even the Great God will tear it apart with a flaming sacrifice.

Images and thoughts tempt him in unguarded moments. Amandil leans on the prow to cut the ropes with his sword, and the ship starts to slip away from the shore. A pale woman stares at the flames in silent fear; then slowly pulls her courage together and jumps.

Is this, as they claim, the ultimate faith? To smile as you feel the burning gap under your feet, to sit back while the inexorable flux of the current drags you to your death?

Is he a coward, for doing neither?

In the end, however, his well-schooled thoughts always end by bringing him back to reality. And then he sees it clearly: those are nothing but the illusions of error. The only real faith is to stand and face evil, refusing to surrender to the morbidity of sacrifice.

Yehimelkor had never shrunk from his duty. He has opposed three kings and a demon, and now, in his exile, he waits for a lonely death among Elf-friends who despise him. Every night, he wakes up to lay on the floor, and resumes his prayers for the cursed island.

Faithful. He curves his lips, in a small and bitter smile. All sides call themselves like that, but none of them knows the real meaning of the word.

Yehimelkor, the last High Priest of Melkor, is the only Faithful. And even now, this gives him some satisfaction.