What Brings Us Together by Aipilosse

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The Máhanaxar

Sauron is taken to the Ring of Doom to stand before the Valar.

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What have I done?

Sauron could see nothing but the rushing darkness and hear only the churning earth. He closed his eyes and Celebrimbor’s lifeless face appeared. 

He could have survived. It takes a long time to strangle someone. He had no idea how long he had his hands around Celebrimbor’s throat, though. And he had felt nothing from him, no spark of consciousness at all. He tried again to reach out with his mind and reawaken their slumbering bond, but it felt like being dashed against a wall. As he had still been reeling from struggling with Lumbë and his own memories of betrayal, someone had clasped a chain first on one of his wrists and then the other, abruptly cutting him off from the world. The chains that bound him enclosed his fëa so tightly in his body that he could not even tell the composition of the earth that encased him, nor feel the spirits of the Maiar who were dragging him towards Valmar. 

He didn’t even know if he was going towards Valmar; his sense of direction was nonexistent. They could be carrying him back to whatever prison he came from. He suspected not, though — after such a public disaster, the Valar would want to make it clear that the culprits were caught and punished. Many of the wedding guests had witnessed Aulë and Tulkas arriving to seize him and Lumbë.

But was Lumbë the only one? Lumbë’s words echoed in his mind: He had not tasked you with preparing the land for His coming. He and Olórin had theorized that if Sauron had escaped, others likely had too. Neither of them had anticipated being proven correct in such a shocking manner.

Underneath the anxious circling of his mind, a pulsing pain ran through his body. He could not tell if the pain lay in his fana or fëa, but it felt like every joint had been wrenched apart. He had clawed back control of the shattered remnants of his self, but the expenditure of power during the battle and the effort of regaining mastery over his mind had left him exhausted beyond measure.

What have I done. What have I done. What have I done. A similar refrain had run through his head as he held Celebrimbor’s severed thumb in his hand long ago in Eregion, but then the certainty and purpose the Ring granted him had allowed him to quickly smother both the fruitless train of thought and Celebrimbor’s panicked screams, and he had no other recollections of shocked regret. Now, he could not end the ceaseless loop of this night’s events.

At last the pace slowed, and the earth that encased him sank enough that he could see their destination. The gates of Valmar approached, the horse-shaped Maiar who were carrying him turning from the color of rich black dirt to grey stone as the ground changed. They stopped at the gate and shifted back, until their forms were that of two stone men, each gripping one of his arms. Out of the corner of his eye he could see two additional Maiar holding Lumbë in the same manner. 

A bolt fell from the sky, materializing into a shining figure with golden wings, garbed in blue.

“My Lord Manwë commands you to bring the prisoners to the Máhanaxar.”

“It will be done, Eönwë,” said Aulë.

Sauron met Eönwë’s eyes. The other Maia’s face held old anger and even older disappointment. He launched himself back in the air without another word.

They approached the Máhanaxar, Ezellohar and the skeletal remains of the Two Trees rising on their left. The haze of pain obscured the storied surroundings, the roots of legends that had reached him through the eyes of other Úmaiar and imprisoned Eldar. 

They entered the Ring of Doom, the high pillars stark white in the moonlight. Manwë sat on this throne, golden light streaming from his crystal crown upon the white halo of his hair. Varda sat on his right, garbed in a net of stars. The only other Valar there were Írmo and Estë. Irmo’s hair was as the lightest cloud at sunrise and he was draped in gossamer and gold. Estë looked like nothing so much as a typical elven woman, only a little larger, her hair braided back and wearing grey raiment simple in style. Sauron did not meet their eyes. He did not know if he would ever have been ready for this moment, but he certainly wasn’t now.

Aulë strode into the center of the ring and bowed. He appeared to be communing with Manwë, but Sauron could not hear what he said. Tulkas and Lumbë, flanked by two muscular Maiar in Tulkas’ train, stood nearby. Tulkas appeared to join the mental conversation, still unintelligible to Sauron.

At last Manwë turned to Lumbë. “Lumbë, formerly known as Airecalen, Maia of Ulmo, now of the Poisoned Brethren of Melkor, Polluter of the Earth, Sea-witch. In addition to your past deeds, for which you have not atoned through the task you were given, you have slain another and caused further injury. Violence entered through you into a realm of peace and healing. Were these acts done in secret in the long-sundered East, they would be grievous, but in this holy land where many are still healing from the wars of ages past, these crimes are ruinous.”

Manwë’s head tilted towards Sauron. “Sauron, formerly known as Mairon, Maia of Aulë, who was once the Lieutenant of Morgoth, dread master of Werewolves, chief of his instruments of terror and torment. One who corrupted the Children, one whose works still stand as a testament to corruption and evil. Named the Deceiver, who brought the downfall of Eregion and then Númenor; the Dark Lord, who sought to make himself Lord of the Earth, who crowned himself a god among Men, diverting their lives from the pattern that the One laid in the beginning.” 

Manwë paused, seeming to take in the full measure of Sauron’s being, flipping through the sum total of his deeds, his works, his crimes. He stayed silent for a long moment. “A punishment was also devised for you.” He stopped, prodding again at Sauron’s mind, rifling through its contents. “Yet you have shirked that punishment for many years,” Manwë said at last.

Irmo spoke, his voice light as a whisper yet carried clearly through the Máhanaxar. “You are many, where you should be one. Brightness turned to darkness — now half-light.” He tilted his head. “I still see a thread of my own in your heart.”

“Abhorrent One.” Estë’s voice sounded much closer than where she sat, as if she were speaking in his ear. “You have harmed beyond my skill to heal. That should not be so, and I would that it will never be so again.” She tilted her head, eyes hooded in contemplation. “Yet of yourself, some is salvageable. Work has already begun to reverse the twisting of years.”

Manwë raised his hand in a gesture of rejection. “Yea, and you still flaunt the Doom that the One set for your repeated treachery, your arrogance, and your lust for power. For did not Ilúvatar himself strip from your being the aspect of beauty, so that you may not deceive the Children with fair mien? Your brightness is gone, and all shall see it! Dark and terrible you will appear, but never again can you entrap the children with beauty.”

Sauron’s skin tightened and then cracked. Corruption seemed to boil up from his guts, burning tendrils of ice spreading rot that spiraled from his center and made itself known in gangrenous sores on his hands. He closed his eyes in the face of a scouring wind. When he opened them again, he saw a cloud of gold hair being blown away.

“Evil their path has been.” Varda spoke from her seat, her eyes brightening, and her garb becoming a full robe of starlight. “But we will need the full court of our brethren to determine their fate.”

Manwë nodded once, and then addressed Aulë and Tulkas. “I thank you for your quick action, Lords of Craft and Strength. Take them to a place of holding and make sure they are well guarded.”

“Will I not be permitted to speak?” Sauron said, some stifled rage boiling up. His voice had transformed into a harsh croak and he could feel how his lips no longer fully covered his teeth, his face now in a perpetual grimace.

“The time for speech will come,” said Manwë. “But not until the rest have been assembled.”

The Maiar renewed their grip on his arms, and they marched Sauron from the Ring.

~

They chained him in a cell crafted of a stone-like material meant to still any note of Song from the outside. Standing in the dark, sealed off from the world completely by the chain and the walls of silent stone, Sauron could do nothing but gnaw at the same thoughts over and over. 

Encased this way, his ancient fear of bonds returned, theoretical visions of confessions and penitence dissolving in the reality of restraint, an eternity of nothingness stretching before him. He needed to escape; he could not stand to live like this. 

And then the yawning loss and the driving anger to take back his own surfaced, and he knew he could not be free. 

He was alone in the underground chamber he had been taken to. He had seen what looked like similar alcoves to the one he stood in as the Maiar marched him to his current location, but it seemed Lumbë had been imprisoned elsewhere. The only interruption to his solitude occurred after some indeterminate amount of time, first heralded by the sound of the door at the top of the stairs opening and then the crystals embedded at intervals along the wall slowly brightening. With a snick , the bars in front of his cell lowered.

Eönwë’s wings were lowered so that they trailed behind him like a golden cloak, but he still glowed with a brightness that seared Sauron’s eyes after the long darkness. He stoically blinked and offered no greeting.

“Here you are at last,” Eönwë said, “after avoiding justice for so long.”

Sauron had dissociated his self from his new fana almost immediately, and so did not notice the physical pain of standing for days on end, but the mental trial of being unable to move had almost driven him to panic. The panic took an abrupt turn into annoyance. “I have never cared for your lectures, Blessed Herald, and still do not,” he said.

“As if you were not similarly blessed,” Eönwë shot back. “There was never any reason for your rebellion, for your dissatisfaction. You were valued and admired, and were given duties commensurate with your skills.”

“If in this late age you still cannot comprehend why one would do anything other than walk in their appointed path, I don’t think further conversation will be fruitful.” Sauron leaned his head back against the column and stared at a spot above Eönwë’s head.

Power shimmered at Eönwë’s fingertips — he pulled himself back with a shake of his head. “I did not come here to argue. I will deliver this insight and leave: if you are willing to humble yourself before Lord Manwë, and truly seek pardon for the evil you wrought, there are some who would extend another chance to you, even now.”

Eönwë’s reluctant counsel soured in Sauron’s ears. He had been planning on doing exactly that, but now that it came from Eönwë, said as if it were the epitome of offered grace, it galled Sauron to follow his advice.

“In the ages since we last spoke I have grown no more inclined to listen to your wisdom.” The last word dripped with every bit of contempt Sauron could muster.

“This was a waste,” Eönwë said, mostly to himself. “I cannot believe Olórin thought speech would be of any benefit.” He turned to leave.

“Wait!” Eönwë likely knew the aftermath of the wedding; Celebrimbor’s fate was a question greater than his pride.

Eönwë folded his arms. “More insults, Mairon? More ways to elaborate on how I am but a wheel stuck in an endless rut?”

“I have not insulted you,” Sauron said. He let out a harsh breath. “I do not wish to insult you.”

“I should not have come,” Eönwë said, but he arrested his exit nonetheless

“I ask only this: does Celebrimbor live?”

“Will you send someone to finish him off if the answer is ‘yes’?”

“No, even if I had henchmen, which I do not, I do not wish him harm.” Sauron said, in a pleading tone that sounded strange in his harsh new voice. “I just need to know. Please, look in my mind if you must — you will see that I do not lie.”

“I do not need to look in your mind,” Eönwë said, resigned. “I know the nature of your connection with him. Celebrimbor lives. But, Mairon, this is yet another evil in a long list of evils.”

“I didn’t want to hurt him.”

“I know, but even had you not consigned a part of your mind to rote madness, your relationship with him would be an ill thing. We were not meant to bond with the Children in that way. Their theme is separate from ours for good reason. It is well you are here now, and that he is unlikely to want anything but an end. It would be best for Celebrimbor if he was able to wholly sever himself from you.”

Sauron closed his eyes. If he could not block Eönwë’s voice from his ears at least he could avoid looking at his concerned face. Relief flooded him, Eönwë’s lecture notwithstanding. “Celebrimbor will do as he wishes,” Sauron said. “But our love was more than an aberration.”

Eönwë’s wings swished briefly along the floor, as if he leaned towards Sauron, but then an extended rustling indicated he instead turned towards the door. After raising the bars again, Eönwë left without another word.

~

The next visitors were the same Maiar who had brought Sauron to the cell in the first place. Wordlessly they unchained him from the post and walked him up the stairs. All the Valar must be gathered, but Sauron could not say whether they had done so with haste or after many weeks. 

He didn’t know if relief or despair filled him over Celebrimbor’s absence during the intervening time between his arrival in Valmar and now. Ever since he had found out he lived, Sauron had half expected, half feared that Celebrimbor would appear at the top of the steps, ready to scream at him, fight for him, condemn him, rescue him. Do anything but forget about him. 

The streets of Valmar were strangely empty, even though the sun indicated early afternoon. It seemed no one thought he was a helpful spectacle for the Elvish citizens of the city, and they had been told to stay home. They marched him to the Máhanaxar again, walking between the high smooth pillars, the afternoon sunlight throwing hazy beams, the subtle colors of the stone revealed in contrast to the pure white they had appeared under moonlight. 

All of the Valar sat enthroned now, and with Maiar standing in clusters beside them. Manwë and Varda sat at the peak of the half-circle still, Manwë holding his scepter; both were crowned in light but dressed simply in white skirts. Aulë and Yavanna sat on Manwë’s left and Ulmo and Mandos on Varda’s right, but Sauron could not see the rest of the Valar from the center of the Máhanaxar where he now stood. 

At an insistent push to either side of him, Sauron dropped to his knees and bowed his forehead to the ground, the first words he planned to say echoing over and over in his head. King of the air and lady of starlight, I have done evil, furthering the marring of the world, but please, grant me mercy.

He knelt for a long time. Finally, Manwë said, “Rise, Sauron, servant of Melkor.” 

Sauron slowly rose. Is that what I am to them still, their brother’s servant?

“I have made known your crimes,” Manwë continued, “I have gathered my brethren, and now we must judge and consider what your fate will be.”

Aulë spoke with a voice like falling rocks. “But first, how did you escape from your cage, and are you also the culprit who released your brethren from their posts?”

“I do not know, but perhaps I could discover who did,” Sauron replied.

“Insolent!” Yavanna’s soft voice held no less power than her husband’s. “Destroyer of woods, polluter of fields, enslaver of my children. You should never walk free again for the least of these crimes.”

Manwë held up a hand. “Do you truly not know? How is your knowledge less than Lumbë’s?”

Sauron’s heart sank. He and Olórin had discussed Sauron offering to help uncover the mystery of his escape with the hope that the offer of assistance and his genuine innocence in the matter could buy him some time and maybe some mercy. They had not factored Lumbë in, though. 

“I do not know,” Sauron said. “I know not what sort of place held me, nor how I was freed. I only knew I was free, and so fled from my prison.”

“Because he is damaged,” Estë said from her place on the edge of the half circle. “The life-eater had no use for a broken servant.”

“Do you believe Lumbë and his tales of the life-eater?” Oromë asked, the golden chains on his horns chiming as he tilted his head towards Estë. “My hunters have scoured the plains and woods around the Door of Night, and there is no trace of one such as he.”

“Ungoliant left behind marks as alien as they were foul,” Nessa said from the other side of the circle. She gathered her layers about herself as if to ward off a chill, solemnity on her round face. “Her erma is not of the stuff we sang, and so repels all beings of Eä, like the scent of a lion tells the gazelle to flee.”

“Yet still she hid from us,” Estë said. “Trust not in the absence of evidence, for we have been blinded before.”

Ulmo nodded, sending ripples through his floating hair. “Whatever this creature is, I believe it has some cloaking power. For you only found one of the escaped Úmaia, Oromë, if I am not mistaken. And only yesterday Ossë battled and subdued another one hiding in the far southern waters, but that is all we have apprehended after much searching.”

Varda’s bright eyes fell on Sauron. “And you know nothing of this.”

“No,” Sauron replied, although Varda had not asked a question. “Have all of Melkor’s former servants escaped? There were thousands of us — how can they all be hidden? And how weak were our bonds that we were all able to escape?”

“It is not for you to know,” Námo said, his eyes covered by his black hood, but his chest bare above his simple linen skirt and marked with ancient symbols. 

“Is it not? Am I not facing imprisonment in the same manner as before? But there was no trial then — why now?” Sauron asked.

Vána giggled from her flower-entwined throne. “Would you have us make the same mistakes again? We can learn, we can change, just as all things do.” 

“I would not advise you be imprisoned as before,” Ulmo said. “I have no desire to make your escape so simple.”

“What is to be done with you?” Aulë said, stroking his beard. “You have proved false again and again — I cannot see how we can allow you to walk free to spread your lies among the Children again.”

Estë sat forward, addressing Nienna. “How long have we sought to undo the twisting of the Children?”

Nienna blinked, fresh tears falling down her face. “For as long as their tortured souls have come screaming into my brother’s Halls.”

“Then that should be the length of your punishment, Sauron,” Estë said. “And it should be ever-lengthening, not ending until the last marred soul can rest.”

Vairë motioned and Sauron found himself turning to face her. Even now her hands moved, weaving something between her fingers as she considered him. “I cannot see the thread of your future. With Lumbë there was one path, or the other. With you, there is only murk.”

“Do you know why?” Námo asked her.

Vairë still considered Sauron. “You have been made, destroyed, and remade many times, tangling your past and your future. You are bound to one of the Eruhíni, as only one other has been, and the fates of the Children are often hidden to our eyes.”

“The Children, yes, and there is the true depths of your crimes,” said Námo. “My Halls are still filled by those whom you have harmed. Some will never leave, the hurt is so deep. Are there words you would say to them? By what logic would you use to explain why you may walk under the sun while they cannot?”

Silence fell as Námo stared at Sauron, and he realized he must answer. “I would ask how I wronged them,” Sauron finally said. An angry hiss sounded behind him. “Because an apology is meaningless if the hurt is not understood. And then, if I had truly caused harm that I regretted, I would apologize.”

“And if it was not accepted?” Námo asked. 

“Then I would let them go their own way and seek to trouble them no more,” Sauron replied.

“You speak true.” Aulë sounded surprised. “You have already followed this method.”

“He could apologize until the Music ends and we are created anew, and it would still not be enough to right the marring he has done to what I love.” Yavanna’s wrath crackled through the Máhanaxar like fire. “He should be unmade, cast into the Void like his master.”

“That path has been considered,” Manwë said. “But it is not the will of the One.”

Varda shifted, glimmering even in the daylight, and looked to someone on the far edge of the circle. “And what is your thought, Olórin? For you fought Sauron longer than any of us and should have a say in his fate.”

Olórin stepped forward. He no longer appeared as an old man and wore instead a fana of glimmering silver, ripples of tears and dreams and starlight forming a robe around him. He still wore a ridiculous old hat, which he removed to speak.

“I did, and for many years he was my chief enemy and I his. And I was the victor, for he could never understand someone who did not seek control, nor who used his power only ever to aid those weaker than himself. But as to his fate, it should not be for me to decide, for I consider our enmity concluded with the ending of the age. What happens next is merely a matter of curiosity to me.”

A stab of betrayal smote Sauron. He should not have expected Olórin to speak in his favor after so many years of enmity, but he had.

“Is that why you have come, Olórin?” Irmo asked. “To see for yourself what Mairon’s fate will be?”

“Oh no, I am here to make sure no perspective is forgotten in this debate. It is easy to only think of the mighty deeds and the folk who did them, but even the most humble of people he affected should be considered.”

Ulmo’s eyes flashed. “Yes, all should be considered, even those whose voices will never be heard in this circle. Abhorrent one, you have plagued the Secondborn from the beginning, casting a shadow on their entrance into the world. How will you atone for the millions of Men whom you have slain, whom you have maimed, whom you have cursed so that even their children’s children must live with the evil visited upon their kin. How do you answer that charge?” Ulmo’s voice gathered all the force of a raging storm and seemed to shake Sauron’s constrained spirit.

“I can only apologize, and offer to right what I can,” Sauron said. “But not all I did was ill — there are many who did not die because of me and lived in great health because of my actions.” He had meant to beg for forgiveness, but he had also resolved to not allow the Valar to forget their abandonment of Middle-earth. It seemed he would not be given an opportunity to confess, and would only face accusation after accusation. So be it; if no one would speak for him, he would speak for himself.

“One drop of water makes no difference in an ocean,” Ulmo said. “It would be unjust to weigh a handful of lives improved over the vast numbers ruined.”

Something wet trickled down the back of Sauron’s neck and he stiffened, imagining Ulmo raising a watery prison around him already. Instead two hands fell on his shoulder, cuffed in silvery lace. Nienna bowed her head so that Sauron fell under the shade of her hood.

She said nothing, but a thought other than his own entered Sauron’s mind for the first time since Ornéliel had clapped the chains on him. At first he thought he heard the cries of birds gathered in a vast rookery, but as he listened, from the cacophony individual voices began to stand out. They spoke in many languages, Elvish, Mannish, even a few in the Black Speech. They cried for homes that were lost forever, for sons and daughters maimed, or dead, or sundered forever, and for their own pain: parched mouths, starving bellies, and twisted bodies. 

The sound flooded his mind, wrapped him in overwhelming grief, sank into his skin until he could no longer remember his pride, nor his righteous anger, nor his carefully crafted apologies. He had thought he had understood how there were some things that he could never right, and he had bowed to that reality when he had apologized to Celebrimbor and to others, but he had not understood, not truly, the extent of the warping and heaviness of grief that his actions had unleashed on the world.

The pressure on his mind eased just a fraction. It is mine to hold as well , Nienna said, and Sauron knew that just as he was the only one in the circle who heard her voice, he was the only one who knew the full burden of his wrongdoing.

I can never make it right . Even as the thought smote his heart, a gust of wind pulled Sauron to face Manwë again and he found that Nienna was sitting where she had been before between Vairë and Tulkas. 

“You would right what is in your power to correct — I see that truth in your heart. Yet there is not time enough for you to finish that task, though the Song is far from ending,” Manwë said. “It would seem that the whole earth cries out against you.”

“Not the whole earth,” Nienna said. “There are always some who are moved to pity and desire mercy for others.”

An impossibility: even if there were any fools who would pray for mercy for his sake, their voices would be drowned beneath the cries of the broken. 

“Dear sister, would you again aid in the prayer of one who wrought endless suffering in the world?” Irmo asked.

Vairë spoke instead. “Everything must come to an end at some point.”

“The broken and the merciful are often the same,” Nienna said.

Nessa shook her shoulders, her garments unfurling, multi-colored garlands uncovered beneath her white cloak. “If he is discarded forever he can never harm again,” she said. “Yet neither can he help.” 

“This one at least I could keep tamed,” said Tulkas with a booming laugh, though his teeth bared in his bearded face looked more like a snarl.

“Are there those among us who would truly argue for pardon for one such as this?” Ulmo asked. The fins behind his ears flared. “Have you not been listening to a word he said? He still offers excuses for his subjugation of Men! His contrition is a paltry thing.”

“Some who are owed vengeance beyond any you can claim speak in his favor,” Vairë said. “Nessa also speaks truly — the one who tied the knot in the first place may be best placed to undo it. At the very least, it is only right that he should struggle to unknot the snarled threads.”

Manwë inclined his head. “Oromë, you have not yet spoken, and I would hear what you and Vána would say.”

Oromë tapped a clawed hand on the bones of his throne. “I am loath to grant any mercy to one who has tried to foil my guardianship of the Children from the very beginning.” 

“It would be ill were he to disrupt our peace again,” Vána said with a frown. “What I ask is this: Sauron, are you willing to die in truth? Shed all your old aspirations and dreams, and abandon your mastery for service?”

All was grey, and the words stuck in Sauron’s throat. His first dreams had died long ago, changing to aspirations of power and control. Then those had been dashed to pieces as well. There had been a moment on the roof with Celebrimbor when he had glimpsed the possibility of a fresh start. An opportunity to create, and dream, and love where he would not repeat his errors, but that future was drowning in the tears of the past.

“Will you not answer Vána?” Manwë asked. “Is there aught else you would say?”

Sauron looked at the future stretching before him, aware of the strains of sorrow that he had sent shaking through the Music. “Would that I could find a true end,” he said at last.

“A lie at last,” said Námo, and Sauron realized that he spoke truly; even in his purposeless state, adrift in despair, a small part of him didn’t want to be separated from the world forever.

Manwë stood. “There is much to consider, and many parts to our judgment. Sauron, once named Mairon, you will be summoned again when our judgment has been made.”

The two Maiar on either side of him appeared again. They clasped his arms and marched him back to the cell.

 

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Chapter End Notes

Erma - Quenya, Prime Matter
Úmaia - Quenya, Evil spirit

Friends, if you ever find yourself writing a story where there's a scene where 16 different god-like beings speak, my advice to you is to think of a different plot.