Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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Interlude XII: Chased by Shadows

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Do you know what? You are behaving like a fool.

Isildur closed his eyes, then immediately opened them again. The sky was full of small clouds, of the kind that moved fast and changed shapes with the direction of the wind, separating and congregating as if on the whim of an invisible higher being. Whenever one of them veiled the sun, a shiver racked his limbs, but he was still too wet to put his clothes on. He was also too tired to stand, and even more to do the things he knew he would have to do once that he managed to struggle to his feet.

Once upon a time, when he had been young, he had enjoyed swimming away from the coast because it was dangerous, and this danger made him feel on the brink of escaping his safe and boring existence. Now, all that he wanted was to exhaust himself so much that he would lose the ability to think. When this had proved just as impossible as reaching a point where the sky plunged to meet the earth and the wrath of the Valar fell upon trespassing mortals, he had tried to cover even greater distances, until he had been about to drown in truth, and only a favourable current had been able to save him, washing his drained body upon the shore. But even then, as he laid on the surf that night gasping for breath and feeling the pain of the salt on his scars, he had been unable to stop thinking. And he had been angry at him, angrier even that he was now.

Is this why I died? So you could kill yourself?

“Nobody asked you to die”, he muttered to the empty beach.

Then you might as well stop acting as if you had.

Isildur had heard many ghost stories when he was a child. Most of them had been told by Malik’s father, who had brought them to the Island from the land of his birth. For the Haradrim, the souls of the dead were evil and vindictive, often returning to haunt the living with the purpose of luring them into the shadows where they had been imprisoned for eternity. Isildur’s father used to say that those were nothing but superstitions, and that all souls went to the Halls of Mandos, where they awaited their turn to pass beyond the Circles of the World. At some point, Isildur remembered, his young mind had found an easy solution to this dilemma: Númenórean souls went to the Halls of Mandos, of course, but the souls of the Haradrim did not. He did not recall ever wondering what would happen to Malik if he died; after all, this had been even before he began seeing him dead in his dreams. Back then, as far as Isildur was concerned, both he and Malik could have been immortal.

Nobody would blame a child for thinking that, he thought, closing his eyes again as the radiant disk of the afternoon sun emerged from the veil of clouds. But when the child grew, and saw enough death around him for the meaning of his dream to be made clear, and he still refused to see the truth because the person he should have never listened to had managed to cloud his mind with his clumsy lies, there was no excuse to be made for him anymore.

If your dream showed this happening, then according to you it was meant to happen, wasn’t it?

“I should never have listened to you. I should never have let you come.”

Fine. Let us say that you are right. You were at fault, and you owe me. But you should try paying your debts by protecting my descendants, swearing revenge, and all those things that the Haradrim in my father’s tales used to do. Or have you ever heard of anyone who succeeded in placating a ghost by acting like a bloody idiot?

That pain felt just as raw as the pain of his wounds whenever the salt water of the Sea touched them.

“I… I do not know what else to do. I cannot avenge you. I do not mind risking my life, but I cannot put my family in any more danger, not after what you and I did. And you should know that Ilmarë will never, ever let me near your child.”

And you will never, ever reach Valinor swimming. But that does not stop you.

His eyes were tearing; whether because of the salt or the grief that crushed his chest and left him breathless, he was not sure anymore

“I am not… trying to reach Valinor, Malik. I do not think I ever was.”

Good. Because, one day, Ilmarë will realize how much she needs you here. And that day, you should better be at her side, or I will become like the ghosts in the stories. No, not like them -I will be like the real ghosts behind those stories, whose grislier details my father used to omit so we could sleep at night. Do you understand?

It was a very long time before the choking sensation eased enough to let any words past Isildur’s throat. Even then, his voice was so full of emotion that he was forced to mumble, afraid that it would break if he tried to make it louder.

“And I thought you were a Númenórean.”

Malik did not reply, and the sudden silence around him left him strangely bereaved. Above his head, the sun disappeared behind wisps of cloud, only to reappear seconds later in all its shining glory. Around him, he could feel the wind growing steadily stronger.

Isildur wiped the tears from his eyes, and struggled to his feet to get his clothes back.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“You should go.”

Eluzîni stared at the magnificent summer gardens of the palace of Arne, a familiar stony look upon her face. It reminded him of the way she would glare at someone who wore inappropriate clothes for a given event, such as armour for a wedding, or -more to the point- a bright, colourful dress for a funeral.

“I will not leave you” she said. “Things are becoming ugly in the Island. You know that, once I am there, it is unlikely that I will be allowed to return. They will find pretexts to keep me there, and I will become yet another hostage.”

“Well, the King would have to be seriously afraid of me, to need so many hostages to feel safe.” Elendil tried to sound light-hearted, but it was difficult to joke about unpleasant things that had become too real. “I wonder if he isn’t rather reassessing the effectivity of that strategy after the last events. Perhaps I should have been the hostage all along.”

Eluzîni’s look grew even stonier.

“I am sorry. But I stand by what I have said: Isildur and Ilmarë need you more than I do now, and you should be with them.”

The first time he had said that, she had been furious, perhaps too much for the emotion to be wholly honest. Since then, her reactions had grown more subdued, but in the process they had veered a little too close to the edge of despair.

“And what would I be able to do, if I was there? Do you think I can embrace them and make all their problems go away, like I did when they were children? “She shook her head, bitterly. “If I could ever bring myself to do that. I am so angry that I will probably end up yelling at them that they deserved everything they got.”

An empty threat, and a rather clumsy lie, too, he thought, though he did not voice it. He only knew what had happened from Amandil’s succinct messages through the Seeing Stone, but his father had never been very good at hiding his thoughts and emotions. From them, Elendil had acquired a chillingly accurate idea of the respective ordeals that his eldest and youngest children were going through, an information which Eluzîni, in turn, had wrestled from him. He had been devastated, and he knew that she was, too. For a while, he had even pondered the mad idea of deserting his post and risking the King’s wrath yet again, but he knew that the impact of his actions on others -both those who lived in Númenor and those who relied on him in this faraway, barbarian land- would be inversely proportional to the consequences for himself. And he had also learned by now that this was not an advantage, but a terrible, terrible weakness.

That was why he needed her to go.

“If Sauron is on the rise in Númenor, I do not believe my family can stay neutral for much longer. What now seems the impulsive foolishness of youngsters may well be the policy of their elders one day.”

“To ambush Palace Guards in the dead of the night to steal the fruit of a tree?”

Elendil sighed.

“The White Tree was a very ancient, very powerful symbol. Now, the fruit which survived its destruction to blossom into a new tree will become a no less powerful symbol of hope for the future.” He paused for a moment, wondering if he should utter the next words which came to his mind. “And it may be the same with Ilmarë’s child.”

Eluzîni stared at him. For the first time since the start of this conversation, he was unable to read the emotion behind her look

“I knew”, she said, in a very low voice. “I was… aware that she was in love with Malik, and that he loved her back. I knew, and yet I said nothing, did nothing about it. I thought that it would go away after a while, that I would not have to intervene. And then, the King took them away and I did not… I could not…” The last words died in a sob, and for the first time since she heard that her son was lying at the brink of death, and then that her daughter expected a child from a man who was no longer in this world, she began to cry. Instinctively, Elendil rushed to pull her into an embrace.

For a long time, neither of the two said anything, until he judged it was the appropriate moment to end the silence.

“I understand. You married me because you loved me, Eluzîni. And now you felt selfish, as if you had no right to tell others that they could not do the same as you did.”

She raised her tear-streaked face towards him, and laughed bitterly.

“Is that what you think? No, Elendil – I thought that she was like me. That she would be easily infatuated with the men around her, and then forget about them just as easily, until one day she found someone that she could not forget. Tell me, how could I have misread her feelings so grievously? I am her mother!”

This time, he had to admit that he had no words at the ready to answer this. But he knew that her guilt was unfair: she blamed herself for not interpreting certain signs correctly, and yet he had not even noticed those signs at all. He might just as well blame himself for being aware that Isildur’s foolhardy disposition could get him and others killed, and yet doing nothing to prevent this from happening. And Malik’s mother might even agree, he thought, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Self-recrimination, however, and endless examination of the past to look for the formula that would have prevented an undesirable outcome was an idle pastime that availed nothing, and destroyed one’s clarity of mind to deal with the present. And with a future that looked bleaker at each passing day, he remembered, darkly.

“I did not know that you felt like this”, he said. “But now that I do, I am more certain than ever that you should go to Númenor, Eluzîni. For you will never stop being angry at yourself until you can help Ilmarë in some way.”

She shrugged, but did not oppose his suggestion as she would have done before.

“If there is something I can do.”

“If there is, I am absolutely certain that you will find it.”

Eluzîni did not answer. Instead, she let her head rest against his shoulder, and her eyes became lost in the distance as her brow furrowed in thought.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“Move aside.”

The woman’s face paled, and her mouth snapped shut in the middle of her long-winded explanation about the Prince’s condition. The expression in his face must have been frightening enough for her well-prepared euphemisms to desert her mind in a rush. Not paying further mind to her, he walked towards the cradle, where Zimraphel was sitting still like a statue, her hand pressed against the small forehead.

Gimilzagar was asleep. His chest, however, shook with the ugly noise of his tortured breathing, and the tiny ribcage shot upwards with sharp and agonic movements, as if the body was desperately trying to receive the air it had been denied. His normally pale face was flushed, radiating heat from a fever that had not abated since it erupted on the previous night.

Pharazôn stood still. He had never reacted very well to situations he could do nothing about. That was why he had developed the conviction, forged through years of daring schemes and miraculous escapes, that those situations did not exist, that there was always something that could be done. His son had been born dead, but it had been possible to revive him against all odds. Now, the great miracle which had brought all Númenor to its knees could not meet such a sordid end.

He turned aside, and sought the eyes of the dark robed figure who had entered the chambers following in his footsteps. He was watching the scene calmly, as if everything, from the child’s suffering to his anxiety and Zimraphel’s numb exhaustion was part of some kind of amusing show. Pharazôn felt anger fill his chest.

“Save him”, he ordered, “or I will have you thrown back in the cell where you came from.”

Sauron bowed, perhaps with some exaggeration, and advanced towards the bedside. As his hand came to rest on the little boy’s chest, the laboured breathing started to subside. Then, he closed his eyes, muttering something in a language that no one could understand, while his finely chiselled features grew taut, as if under the throes of a great effort. The flush in Gimilzagar’s cheeks disappeared, leaving only the usual pallor in its wake.

Zimraphel smiled tremulously at Pharazôn.

“Thank you.”

A part of him rebelled at this. It was not my doing, he wanted to say, but the words did not come from his mouth. Perhaps she was right, and Gimilzagar’s continued existence was his doing for bringing Sauron to the Island and commanding his power for his own designs. But somehow, this reasoning still felt hollow in a way that not even he could fully understand.

“He is safe for now. But he will not be safe for long”, Sauron spoke, jerking him away from his musings. Pharazôn stared at him.

“What do you mean? You can save him, can’t you?”

The former Dark Lord’s glance was filled with what almost looked like sincere regret.

“I am doing my best to anchor the Prince of the West’s spirit to the great power of the sacrifice which preserved his life. But that power is growing weaker by the day, and soon it will pass out of the reach of my strongest abilities. No sacrifice lasts forever, my lord King.”

Pharazôn breathed deeply.

“So”, he said, feeling the first pangs of a headache erupt on the back of his skull, “what should I sacrifice next?”

Sauron looked away from him, and in the direction of Zimraphel, who sat in silence, her hand entwined in Gimilzagar’s pale and bony fingers.

“Life is the most powerful of all sacrifices. I am aware of your distaste for such… measures, my lord King, but I am sure that you have not forgotten what happened when the lord of Andúnië’s grandson lay prostrate from the wounds inflicted by your Guards.”

Pharazôn’s blood froze. He had been doing his best to forget, for months now.

“Isildur had someone who was ready to die for him. Who will die for the Prince?”

Sauron’s smiled reassuringly, a sight so incongruous with his words that for a moment Pharazôn found it hard to make sense of it.

“You are the King of Númenor, my lord! You have conquered vast lands, and you will conquer more still. Everything a conqueror wins by right of arms, he owns, whether it may be lands, cities, riches, or souls. Have you not always disposed of the lives of your enemies as you wished? Or perhaps you have the habitude of asking them whether they wish to die for you or not?”

He pondered this. Unconsciously, his gaze sought Zimraphel’s, looking for signs of her reaction to those words. But perhaps because she was too tired, or perhaps because she could not care less about the finer points of the right of conquest as long as Gimilzagar was not dying in her arms, she showed none.

Pharazôn paced around the room, trying to dispel his unease. Sauron was right, of course: barbarians had never been called upon to dispose of their own lives at will once they were defeated in war. Since so long ago that he could not even remember who was the first King to engage in this practice, their leaders had been shipped to the Island to be executed. As if from the deepest recesses of his memory, he recalled words that the captive had spoken to him while he was still on his dark cell, about this practice being a distorted mirror of the original Sacrifice.

It looked so easy. Malik had been only half-Númenórean, and yet Pharazôn had been out of sorts, not wanting what had transpired back then to become known. But if a barbarian was killed in an altar instead of in the public square, who would bat an eye? And if that gave the Prince of the West, and sole heir of the Númenórean Sceptre the strength that he needed to go on living, would not opposing it be a form of treason, even? Barbarians were not hard to come by: somebody was always revolting here or there, and right now, Belzamer was campaigning in the far East to subdue the tribes who had been allied to Mordor. If he asked Balbazer in Umbar to send him a shipload of his latest prisoners, he would gladly do it with the first favourable wind.

Where was the catch, then? Amandil would have asked. Of course, the man who used to be his friend would stubbornly insist that sacrifice was evil, whether its object was an animal, a man, or even a tree, and that Pharazôn was being deceived by this evil spirit. He will try to manipulate you to act against your own interests and hurt your people, he had said, the last time they had spoken to each other in private. But not even Amandil would be able to successfully argue that the barbarians who waylaid Númenórean caravans, attacked their settlements and fought alongside with the Orcs were Pharazôn’s people.

Suddenly, Gimilzagar’s eyes flickered open. As they focused on Zimraphel, he blinked several times, and his parched lips began moving, uttering meaningless yet plaintive sounds. Zimraphel took his hand and kissed it, her eyes glazing over with tears.

Pharazôn stopped in his tracks, and turned towards the prisoner again. Amandil could grumble all he wanted, but he was done listening to him. If he dared to stand before the Council and defy the King of Númenor on this or anything else, whatever it was, he would be dealt with like the traitor he was since he gave shelter to the man who fought the Palace Guards. Pharazôn could not believe he had ever harboured the thought of conditioning his only son’s life to that fool’s approval.

“Your advice has been useful so far”, he declared, as solemnly as he could. “Keep him alive in the meantime.”

Sauron bowed.

“Yes, my lord King.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Pain. Her body was wracked by spasms of glorious pain, physical pain that chased the other kind away like the foul-tasting medicine that cured her illness as a child. As she writhed in its throes, her hands held by women who encouraged her and winced in misplaced sympathy at each one of her cries, her mind felt clearer than ever before, free of the haze which had obscured and twisted the least of her thoughts since he had crossed the gates of the Palace never to return.

“It is a girl!” she heard a voice say, near the foot of the bed. And then she suddenly heard crying that was not hers, and yet seemed animated by a similar energy, as if mother and daughter were both trying to get the attention of the heavenly powers who had left them to this fate.

She was a tiny thing, wet and thoroughly cleaned from the blood and foulness of childbirth. Her face was very red, but she had already stopped wailing when Ilmarë held her in her arms. For a moment, as her fingers traced the baby’s features, the eyes opened briefly, and they were as grey as those of her twenty generations of ancestors.

Ilmarë took a deep breath. She should have expected it: after all, this was how it had always been, and how it would always be. Malik’s child would have nothing of him; he had never stood a chance against the bloodline of Andúnië. Though this should make the next step easier, she could not help but feel a terrible sadness threatening to overwhelm her newfound clarity.

“Isildur”, she muttered in a hoarse voice, using the name as an anchor for her foundering thoughts. A woman’s face grew closer to hers, and she could see that her features looked confused. “Bring Isildur here. Now.” Before I forget why it has to be him, and change my mind.

“Yes, my lady”, the woman replied, the confusion still visible in her countenance. “But perhaps you should rest now, and later…”

“No”, she hissed. She did not trust this moment to last. She did not trust anything in her life anymore, even things which she had used to take for granted. “It has to be now.”

The woman left, and in her wake someone else tried to take the child from her. When Ilmarë shook her head and refused to give her away, however, they did not insist, probably in the mistaken assumption that she needed to hold on to her. Hungry as she must be, the girl fussed and soon started crying again.

“Sssshh. You will have all the food you want soon”, Ilmarë whispered in her ear, wondering if she looked as foolish as Ar Zimraphel doting over her abomination.

“Ilmarë”, a familiar voice spoke from somewhere above. “Ilmarë, what…?”

Her whole body tensed, and her grip on her bundle grew so tight that the intensity of the baby’s cries redoubled. Still, she forced herself to look up, and meet Isildur’s eyes. To her surprise, he flinched under her gaze.

“Coward”, she spat, above the ruckus raised by the crying child.  This time, he did look at her.

“You are hurting her.”

“Not as much as you hurt her before she was even born”, she hissed. He opened his mouth, but closed it again before any words made it past his lips. Suddenly ashamed, she eased her grip on the baby, and cursed at herself. What was she doing? She was supposed to focus. She had been able to do it before.

“Listen to me”, she said, deciding to start over again. “This is Malik’s child, and it has to go to his family. And though I cannot bear to look at you, I know that you are the only one I can trust with this.”

Isildur looked agitated at her words.

“Ilmarë, wait. You should not be so hasty to take action, when your thoughts are still in turmoil.” She scowled, but he did not let her speak. “We know from Grandfather that Mother is on her way to Númenor. You could at least wait until she is here.”

“Wait for what?” she retorted. As she spoke, her arms began rocking the baby in rhythmical movements as if on their own accord, until the crying seemed to subside a little. “Her presence here can change nothing of what has happened.”

“Why cannot you give her a chance? She is resourceful, she knows many people, she may think of something. What evil could possibly befall this child if she spends another month here, with you? No one else will know, but for those of us who already do.”

“And the Queen, Isildur”, Ilmarë hissed. “Do you know why she told me to stay and speak to her in private, back when the Prince of the West was born? She wants my child. She wants to take her from me, and keep her as a plaything for that wretched creature that she calls her son, under the watchful eye of Sauron and the man who killed her father.”

Her words had an effect in Isildur’s countenance: he paled visibly as she spoke.

“And what did you say to her?”

“I said that I would kill her myself before I allowed that to happen.” Her brother stared at her in incredulity, then shook his head, as if words had failed him for once in his life. “She realized that I meant it, and so she let me go, but I know she has not given up on this. So, if you wish her to be safe, take her with you and give her to one of Malik’s relatives and do not tell me where she is. Ever.”

Even with the baby’s cries in the background, the silence between them grew so oppressive that Isildur surrendered to the temptation of pacing around the room, that terrible habit he had picked from the lord of Andúnië. She sat quietly, not letting him out of her sight for a moment.

“What if you regret this later?”

“Unlike you, I have no choice, Isildur.” For a moment, her glance held such an intensity that she imagined that fire could blaze from her eyes. “And when there is no choice, there is no room for regret.”

He kept his composure bravely, though deep inside she knew she had struck the most painful nerve of all -and she was not sorry for it.

“Very well” he said, his voice so low that it could barely be heard. “I will take her. But first, she must be fed properly. And you will give her a name.”

“A name?” She had not expected this request. “Why?”

“She will have nothing from you. This is the least you could do for her.”

For a while, she considered this. As she did so, perhaps at a sign from Isildur, one of the women came back, and this time Ilmarë let go of the baby so she could pick her up. The grey eyes flashed open briefly, and for the short span of a second, the granddaughter of the lord of Andúnië saw a grown, very beautiful woman gazing back at her. She was standing upon the surf of a shore that Ilmarë could not recognize, and a powerful sadness clouded her features.

She flinched, as if she had been physically struck. What was she doing? What had she done?

Then, as soon as it had come, the vision vanished, leaving nothing but the oppressive walls of the birthing chamber to close upon her tired, grieving body. Feeling suddenly cold, she grabbed the sheets, and wrapped them over her shoulders.

“Fíriel”, she muttered. Isildur stopped in his tracks.

“What?”

“Her name. Fíriel”, she repeated. He looked at her uncertainly, as if he was trying to gauge her intent before he replied. Perhaps he was wondering if she could possibly hate her own child.

He is innocent, and so is the child who lives inside you.

Her eyes prickled with the tears that she could no longer shed. It was so unfair that she wanted to scream, to tear things with her bare hands. She did not hate this child. She just could not love her, because the world they lived in and the people in it would not allow her to. And instead of stopping at this cruelty, they would go as far as to blame her for it, though it was not her fault. It was Ar Pharazôn’s fault, and Ar Zimraphel’s fault, and Isildur’s fault and even Malik’s fault, though at least he had never known what he had done to her before he left. And if those evil dreams and visions could be traced back to Him, it was Eru’s fault too, and she was not even afraid to think it. In fact, she thought savagely, if she was struck down where she was right now, she would welcome it.

Your death wish will not save you from the ordeal of living, Ar Zimraphel’s mocking voice spoke to her from the recesses of her memory.

“Ilmarë…” Isildur approached her in concern, aware that something was amiss. But she shook him away, and buried her head under the sheets. She did not wish to see him.

She did not wish to see anyone.

“Leave me alone” she begged. In this dark, she could not see if he had left the room or not, but she did not hear any other sound in her vicinity, and after a while, she finally began to relax.

The next morning, when she was awoken by a woman who brought a pot of tea to her bedside, Isildur and Fíriel were already gone.