Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

---

Miracles

---

It had not been that long ago, when Elendil boarded a ship under the stone gaze of the Warrior and the King to cross the Sea to Middle-Earth. In the intervening years, every landscape, every detail of the Island where he had grown had remained etched in his memory, as vividly as if he had seen them only yesterday. Still, as he leaned on the railing of another ship to scrutinize the view of the mighty harbour of Sor, he could perceive certain differences, like discordant elements in otherwise familiar surroundings. Areas formerly dedicated to storage and repair had been invaded by new fleets of ships, both warships and merchant galleys, which seemed to have finally achieved the impossible feat of crowding the Arms of the Giant. A whole quarter, close to the King’s feet, had been demolished to build an enormous marketplace, where newly-arrived merchandise from every corner of the world was sold, flanked by marble porticoes under whose shadow the Merchant Princes of Sor struck trade deals with the associates of their mainland counterparts.

None of those things, however, concerned him as much in his current circumstances as the great number of soldiers walking around the docks. They were so many because a permanent garrison had been established in the hill close to the city, the captain explained to him, presided by a large fortress visible at the left edge of the horizon, if one’s eyes were sharp enough. Some of them were bound for the ships, to sail to the mainland and join the King in his Haradric campaign.

None of them was there to arrest him.

Elendil would have felt relieved at this, if only he had been able to have well-defined ideas on what to expect once he set foot on the Island. As it was, he could not wholly discard the uncertainty which had been his constant companion since he rode away from his capital of Arne. He had not been personally accused of any wrongdoing, though his father’s actions had affected the whole family. His orders had been to leave Arne immediately and set sail for Númenor, and he had done so. On the other hand, he had not waited for the official communication to reach him, but left in secret so as to not give Bodashtart a chance to exact his revenge. If Míriel –Ar Zimraphel, he had to remind himself- was prudent enough to have other considerations in mind than the mere will to find any excuse to conquer, enslave and destroy, she would have to admit that his actions had been well-advised. But he could not ignore his father’s worrying reports of the situation in the Island, since Sauron’s influence had begun to spread like an insidious poison. According to Amandil, human sacrifice was an accepted practice now, and most Númenóreans believed in its power to save their loved ones and reverse desperate situations. The Prince of the West had been purportedly brought back to life by the destruction of the White Tree, but rumour had it that he was still sick, and Númendil feared that Ar Pharazôn’s departure to the mainland could have a more sinister objective than merely supervising his armies in person. If this was true, Elendil prayed that Harad would be enough to furnish what the King wanted. The Arnian nobility had proved hard to like, but they were still animated by their own ideas of honour and bravery, and their common folk was not so different from the Númenóreans themselves, despite living much shorter lives. Protecting them had become almost a second nature for him, and though he was no longer governor of Arne, a part of him still felt as if he would always be responsible for what happened there.

“They seem to be waiting for you, my lord”, the captain spoke behind his back. Elendil let go of his thoughts and gazed in the direction of the docks, where a party of six men stood in silence, as if waiting for them to land. For a moment, he thought that the soldiers had come for him at last, for they appeared to be armed, but they were not bearing the King of Númenor’s arms. Then, he recognized one of them, and he sighed in relief even as his heart started beating swiftly in his chest.

For about half an hour, which was the time it took the harbour overseer to authorize them to disembark in the name of the Governor of Sor, the man did not move an inch from his location. As soon as he saw Elendil’s tall figure descend the boarding plank, however, he immediately made a beeline for him.

“Elendil” he said, his voice choking with a great emotion. Before he could even open his mouth to answer the greeting, Amandil pulled him into a crushing embrace.

Elendil swallowed, trying to reciprocate as well as he was able. In those years, he had only seen his father during the Mordor campaign, and the contrast between Amandil’s reserve back then and the overpowering emotion he was fighting to suppress as he buried his face in his shoulder now seemed almost surreal. He thought of their curt, awkward conversations through the Seeing Stone, when Elendil’s mother died, when Isildur lay between life and death, when Ilmarë gave her daughter away and Amandil was arrested and exiled for protecting the High Priest. All those events had happened in very few years, but they seemed to have stretched across a lifetime.

Little by little, Amandil regained enough mastery of his emotions to let go of him, and even inspect him gravely while Elendil’s remaining men left the ship and started to congregate around them. Many others had feared returning to the Island, and had chosen to remain in Pelargir, where the number of Faithful still outbalanced the other sectors of the population.

“Well met, Father”, he said, to fill a silence that the lord of Andúnië did not seem ready to tackle on his own. “I almost thought that those men were here to arrest me. But it appears we have not sunk yet to the dire extremes of the reign of Ar Adunakhôr, if they allow you to keep an armed escort.”

At this, Amandil recovered his full composure.

“In Sor, every merchant who can spare a few coin hires bodyguards to protect his person. I may not be a council member anymore, but I am not yet lower than a merchant.” His mouth curved into a smile that was more like a grimace. “And I think I have more reasons to protect my person –and yours- than most of those merchants can claim for themselves.”

As they made their way towards their horses, he filled Elendil on the details of everything which had transpired in the last months. Though father and son had remained in contact through the Seeing Stone, it was the first time that he heard most of those things, and he absorbed the news as greedily as a man who had been lost in the desert for days would drink the water from a spring.

It had been weeks since their family had settled in their old estate near the town of Rómenna, together with the most faithful of their followers. The locals had not been very happy, as the tale of how the exiles from the West had brought decadence and stigma to their community was passed from parents to children in their oldest families. None had dared express their discontent openly to Amandil, but there had been some threats within earshot of certain of his people. The former lord of Andúnië, determined to assuage their fears, had destined much of his money to repairing the roads and embellishing the city, but this had brought him under the attention of the Governor of Sor, who had been clearly tasked with keeping an eye on their movements by both the Sceptre and the powerful merchants who operated in his territory. Meanwhile, grave tidings had arrived from the West: the Sceptre had decided to return the lands of Andustar to the lordship of the High Priest of the Forbidden Bay, Amandil’s enemy. Elendil had been there when a bunch of peasants, cleverly organized by Ashad, had put a humiliating end to the Cave’s pretensions to take the Lower Andustar back through violence. Lord Zarashtart had always been a vindictive man, and his vindictiveness had probably done nothing but increase with old age. Amandil had sent people back to the West to report on any untoward moves that could be attempted from the sanctuary of the Forbidden Bay, and though so far he had received no information, he feared the worst.

As they left the older part of the city of Sor behind, Elendil began to grow aware that the most conspicuous changes to the landscape had not been visible from the harbour. The greatest city of the East had expanded, so much that there no longer seemed to be a visible end to it. For a rider who headed North following the coastline, it was almost impossible to determine where Sor ended and Rómenna began, as if the smaller city had barely escaped being swallowed by the many-headed monster who had grown at its side. It was curious that the townspeople would focus their hatred on exiles, while the real reason of their decadence appeared now more obvious than ever. And yet, such was human nature, and the wary looks of the people of Rómenna when they rode past them reminded Elendil of the Arnians the very first time he set foot on their country, devastated by the actions of the troops of Mordor.

The house perched atop the cliff was only slightly smaller than their abode in Andúnië. It appeared that Ar Adunakhôr had let their ancestors keep enough of their money when he exiled them, at least in the beginning. The view it commanded of the whole Bay, the town and the Sea was impressive, and a part of Elendil was glad for small blessings, for during his years in Arne he had often missed the Sea. Though there was not nearly as much surrounding space as there had been in Andúnië, the first lord in exile had done the impossible to endow this house with outer gardens, like those of his former home, with footpaths and statues and even a few benches to sit and enjoy the breeze.

“It is said that Lord Herendil spent many years trying to get offshoots of his prized mallorn trees to grow here”, Amandil remarked, reading Elendil’s look as he inspected their surroundings. “But he could never make them take root in the East.”

This reminded Elendil of something.

“Did you manage to get Isildur’s… offshoot to take root?” he asked prudently. Amandil shook his head.

“There is no need to measure the words we speak here. Yes, Isildur’s Tree is growing.  According to Father, it will take root wherever Isildur goes.” His look grew colder. “But he paid dearly for this, and not only him.”

For a moment, it felt as if a chill wind had come in, and the sun had been veiled by a cloud. Elendil looked down, a thoughtful frown upon his brow as he considered his father’s words.

“Let us leave the horses here, and go inside to greet the rest of the family”, the lord of Andúnië said at last, briefly pressing his hand against Elendil’s shoulder.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

He was happy to see Eluzîni again, though their separation had lasted no longer than a few months. His children, however, had been in Númenor for years, and he found himself at difficulty to reconcile the men and the woman he had once said farewell to with those who greeted him gravely upon his return. Anárion was the one he had not seen for a longer time, since the day he departed with the then Prince of the South to take part in the Pelargir campaign. In spite of that, he appeared to have changed the least, though Elendil knew him well enough to be aware that this could be an illusion, which he would display before others because he hated to be observed. Isildur, on the other hand, seemed past caring about that and many other things as well. His body looked hale, but there was a haunted look in his eye, as if a ghost was always following behind his footsteps. And perhaps it was, Elendil thought with a shiver, wondering if he would ever get his son to confide the entire truth to him.

But the greatest change of all had been the one experienced by Ilmarë. The last time he had seen her, she had still been a girl, not in age perhaps, but in innocence. Eluzîni blamed herself for not realizing that the love she had felt for Malik had been more than a passing fancy, but the Ilmarë who had leaned over the river barge in Arne and pointed excitedly at her surroundings had used to entertain many passing fancies, and flights of lively curiosity which had to be satisfied on the spot. Now, all that remained of that Ilmarë was the fearlessness, no longer because she did not know how much the world could hurt her, but because she had been so badly hurt by it that she no longer cared for what else it could have in store. She greeted him graciously enough, and even consented to give him an account of the events which had led to her daughter having remained behind on the Andustar (later, Eluzîni informed him that she was safely under the care of Malik’s family, and that she had seen her with her own eyes.) Still, it soon became obvious that she did not look for either comfort or the reassurance that she had made the right choice. As far as Eluzîni had been able to gather, she remained angry with Isildur, whom she blamed for his fateful dream, but refused to open her heart to anyone else. Even she, her own mother, had been unable to make much headway in the last months.

Once, Elendil remembered, Isildur and Malik had rescued a man from a bunch of mountain tribesmen, who had broken virtually every bone in his body. In time, he had healed, but the shape of his limbs had changed so much that he was barely recognizable as the man he had been before. Looking at Ilmarë now, Elendil could not help but ponder if there could be such a thing as a broken and recomposed spirit, which also turned into something different from what it used to be. The very thought brought him such sadness that he longed to embrace her, like Amandil had embraced him on the harbour of Sor. But she barely suffered her mother to touch her, and Elendil knew that anyone else would be even more unwelcome.

“However the pieces may have rearranged themselves, we must thank Eru that they still did” an ethereal voice spoke behind him as he left his wife and daughter sitting in the latter’s chambers. He turned back to meet the sad but serene eyes of his grandfather Númendil, who stood on the gallery in the company of Amandil and another man whose silhouette he could barely see. “A great evil has been done to her, and a lesser spirit might have succumbed to it.”

“Or the great evil might have been avoided altogether”, Amandil retorted. Elendil had the feeling that it was an old matter of contention, which had been revived by his presence.

“All evil could have been avoided, if there had been no dissonance in the Music of the Ainur. But Eru allowed it to be, and only He sees all ends. There must be a reason why the Tree had to be saved, as there is a reason why we had to be exiled here. I can only see glimpses of the future, as if I was gazing through the glass of a distorted mirror, but I still believe that to be true.”

“As true as it was that I had to be taken from you as a child because I had to learn about the world, and become a bridge between us and the rest of Númenor. As true as it was that your ancestors had to keep their faith in exile so they could save the Island, or that the Princess Inzilbêth had to give her life so one of the Faithful could hold the Sceptre one day”, the former lord of Andúnië snorted bitterly. “All lies that we tell ourselves so we can be comforted by the belief that everything is part of a larger plan. No, Father! If I have the strength to wake up every morning and resume this battle, it is no longer because I believe in any of them.”

“If I know you, it will be because of sheer stubbornness”, Elendil remarked, in an attempt to defuse the tension. This Amandil was no longer the man he used to know, either, not after the loss of his wife, his lands, and every single battle he had fought since long before Sauron set foot on Númenor. And his friend, he reminded himself, wistfully recalling everything that Pharazôn had meant to his father in the past. If he had not despaired, it was almost as much of a miracle as Ilmarë’s fierce resilience was, and Númendil’s religious considerations would not provide the comfort that he needed. A man like Amandil would only go on fighting if he felt that others relied on him.

Then again, Elendil was growing more and more certain that the troubles of the Faithful in the Island had done nothing but start. If his suspicions came true, all of them would have plenty to do before the end, whether the peril came by the hand of Sauron or through that mysterious cataclysm of their dreams.

“He was always remarkably impervious to any kind of faith, whether true or false.” The third man spoke unexpectedly, and as he came to the fore, Elendil was shocked to realize that he was none other than the Former High Priest of Melkor himself. Now that he focused his gaze on the old man, his bald head and thin, emaciated features were eminently recognizable, but somehow it had slipped his mind that he was living with them now. “He has the mind of a heathen in the body of a soldier. It is no wonder that he and the King used to get along so well.”

Now, that was a strange brand of gratefulness for the man who had saved his life at the risk of losing his own, Elendil could not help but think. His father, however, seemed to be accustomed to the man’s abuse, probably since the days of the Temple, because he did not even react to it.

“Elendil, I know you have seen him in the Council before, but you have never been properly introduced. This is Yehimelkor, Former High Priest of the Temple of Armenelos.”

The younger man bowed politely, but he was hard pressed to give warmth to his greeting. He had never felt much sympathy for this man, who had made things so difficult for the Council during Tar Palantir’s reign, and though he had been brave enough to oppose Sauron, in the end it had been Elendil’s father who had paid most of the consequences for it. In a deeper recess of his mind, harder to confess even to himself, he also held remembrances of things he had heard many years ago, of how his own birth had once been the cause of the parting of the ways between the priest and his pupil, because Yehimelkor had told his father to kill him before he was born and Amandil had refused.

“Yes, that is me. The demon at fault for each and every one of the misfortunes of the House of Andúnië”, Yehimelkor replied drily, gazing at Elendil with such intensity that for a moment he could almost believe he had been reading his mind. As the moment passed, however, he realized that the man would not have needed to go that far to guess what he must be thinking.

“I would usually not contradict you, but this time I feel that I must. Every spot of trouble I have ever got into has been my own fault and no one else’s”, Amandil retorted.

Elendil nodded at this, though the words had not been addressed to him. His father had always been on the defensive whenever Yehimelkor was discussed, and it was only to be expected that he would be even more so in his presence.

“Then I will be glad to show you the same respect and courtesy that my father and my grandfather have already extended to you, Lord Yehimelkor”, he said formally. The High Priest acknowledged his words with a regal nod.

“Then I thank you, Lord Elendil, in the name of the Great God and his Temple. Now, if you do not mind, I have to retire for my afternoon prayers.”

He departed at a brisk pace that belied the appearance of old age in his features, his white tunic billowing behind his steps. Númendil, who had been gazing at Elendil in silence almost since the start of the conversation, took his eyes off him for a moment to watch the priest retreat, then sought his glance again.

“He did not wish for your death”, he said, as if he was speaking of something inconsequential like the weather. “If he had, my dear grandson, you would never have been born. By releasing your father from the priesthood of Melkor, he saved your life.”

Amandil blinked twice, as if there was fog in his eye.

“Father is right. He might have been a little harsh, but he needed to know for certain whether I was fulfilling Heaven’s orders or merely acting like a stupid fool. That is Yehimelkor for you: a hard man, but not unreasonable. Unless his god is in question, of course.”

“But his god is…” Elendil did not finish the sentence. Amandil shrugged.

“Someone speaks to him, at any rate. Which, as he so kindly reminded me, is more than I can say for myself. And that someone is not the Great Deliverer to whose altars men and women are led like willing lambs to their slaughter.” A cloud came over his features, and suddenly Elendil saw the stormy mood he had affected before, the one that seemed just an inch away from despair, settle in again. “And speaking of slaughter, follow me. I will show you what your son risked his life for.”

Elendil and Númendil followed Amandil through an almost labyrinthic set of corridors and galleries, first across the main compound of the house and then, after they passed a large courtyard, into what looked like a separate wing. There, a gallery led into a smaller courtyard with a well-tended garden, where four footpaths covered in grey gravel converged in an earthen mound crowned by the sapling of Nimloth. Its young trunk was already as white as that of its dead parent, and its tiny leaves a shining silver. Elendil took a moment to admire it, then bowed slightly, following Númendil’s example.

“So”, Amandil spoke after a while. As his voice broke the silence, it almost felt like sacrilege. “What do you think? Was it worth it? All of it?”

Elendil thought hard about this. He focused his thoughts in his father first, whose answer seemed clear from his attitude, but who deep inside yearned for an insight that would gainsay his own. He remembered Isildur’s haunted expression, Ilmarë’s closed one, and Númendil’s serene claim that evil could not be avoided because it would lead to good, as it was shown in the Ainulindalë. And then he let all this fade away, and he had eyes for the Tree alone, whose perfect, eerie beauty lured him into a state of peace where every single thought ground to a halt.

He shook his head.

“I am sorry, Father. But I believe that this question is irrelevant.” Amandil’s eyes narrowed, but he held his gaze. “If we could turn back time and return to the past with the knowledge that we have now, I think that Isildur himself would renounce his dream in horror, and choose his friend’s life and his sister’s happiness over the visions he was sent. But that is not how the world works. Our actions are what they are, and we cannot change them. If they appear senseless to us, it is our duty to find the meaning in them, and make the most of what we have. Whether we would have chosen to have Malik here instead of this Tree does not matter, because the Tree is what we have. And I believe that Malik himself would want us to make something of it.”

Amandil frowned at his words, but Númendil smiled, in that particular way that caused Elendil to wonder if he had always known what he would say. It made him feel a little self-conscious, if not enough to silence him.

“We have been reunited now, after many years. We are relatively far from Sauron’s gaze. We have the last living scion of the Tree of Kings, a rallying symbol for the Faithful of the Island. And we are on the eastern coast of Númenor, the last place that the wave you have always dreamed about will hit the day it comes. Whether it was a divine mind who arranged this or not, let us act as if it had, and salvage what we can from this set of defeats.” For a moment he felt as if he was back on the mainland, haranguing Arnians soldiers before falling upon a superior force of Orcs. The thought increased the feeling of unreality that he had been developing since his arrival to this familiar yet changed place, and his encounters with loved ones who had been broken into a thousand pieces and painstakingly recomposed in different shapes. They all had to cope somehow.

Amandil was no longer frowning, but his expression was so serious that for a moment his son felt concern. In the end, however, he merely shook his head, wiped his forehead, and smiled bitterly.

“You are too wise, my son. You were the greatest governor of Arne, and you would be a great lord of Andúnië in exile, too.” He shrugged, turning away from the Tree and starting to walk back towards the gallery. Instinctively, both Númendil and Elendil went after him. “If it was not a sign of cowardice at this point, I would bequeath the Ring of Barahir to you. But I have made my fair share of the decisions which brought us here, and now I have to fight this battle until the end.”

Elendil had kept his composure quite well through all this. Now, for the first time, it was threatened by those words, by their raw sincerity that made his stomach twist. He wondered how long it would take even for someone such as Amandil to struggle to his feet again. To be the man who had managed, despite all odds, to save the peasants of Arne during the Mordor campaign.

“Do not worry about me”, the older man continued, as if he had been able to guess his thoughts. The smile he affected now was less bitter, but also a little hollow. “It is your children you should be looking after now. Go back to them. Your father can take care of himself, and hopefully also of others.”

Elendil did not argue. Instead, he prayed voicelessly to Eru that those words could be true, and that those he loved would heal from their wounds, however their shapes might be altered by their various ordeals.

That night, as he fell asleep entwined in Eluzîni’s warm limbs, he had his first and last dream of the Wave, rising like a pale phantom over a blood-red horizon.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“The last scouting party is back, my lord King.” He looked up from the map to meet Belzamer’s grave, slightly apprehensive countenance, and he knew that the news they brought was not good. “They appear to have suffered casualties.”

This was probably an understatement, Pharazôn thought as the leader came in, limping and with two missing fingers in his right hand. He ordered him not to bow, afraid that the man would fall if he tried, and had a cup of warm wine served to him. Clutching it in a clumsy grip, he submitted bravely enough to their relentless questioning.

As it appeared, the local guides had told him since the beginning that the mountain pass was unlikely to be accessible. He, however, had not trusted their word, and chose to soldier on with his men until they reached the snow-covered heights. There, the cold had bit into their skin, numbing their limbs and preventing the blood from reaching the extremities of their bodies. Even worse, the pathways had become treacherous, precipitating the animals and several men to their deaths. In the end, he had reached the decision to abandon the beasts, and have the surviving men carry part of their loads. This had increased the risk of accident, but no matter how many of them fell, he had never taken his eyes off the huge cleft of the pass looming above them, and he still thought that they would have been able to reach it if the sky had not turned completely black over their heads, releasing a terrible snowstorm that buried what remained of the path and most of the expedition. He, together with three of his men and two of the three guides had been able to escape, but not unscathed, as they had all lost extremities, and only the ancestral knowledge of the mountain folk had prevented them from suffering worse.

Pharazôn had difficulties to swallow his growing frustration as he listened to the man’s account. For the last month, no matter how far they travelled down that thrice-accursed, neverending mountain chain, he had only heard similar words from every party he had sent. There is nothing behind it. Don’t you see it’s the end of the world?, the soldiers whispered among themselves, even in the highest ranks, when they thought that he could not hear. The gods put it there so we mortals couldn’t fall off.

Until now, he had never had trouble turning the superstitious nature of his men in the direction suited to his needs. Until now, too, he had never been this baffled, not by any crafty enemy he could put a face to, but by the capricious unpredictability of Nature, in a world he could not control and which he did not know. The map stretched before his sight was a lie, a desperate attempt to believe that they, the powerful men from the West, controlled this space enough to draw it on a piece of parchment and carefully plan their movements across it. But the truth was that it had been redrawn so many times that he had lost count, that they were advancing blindly, and that every one of their efforts seemed bound to crash against an impenetrable stone wall.

Taken by a sudden feeling of impotence, the King of Númenor stood from his seat, grabbed the map and threw it into the fire. As he watched the flames blaze and make short work of it, he could hear Belzamer shift uneasily behind his back, perhaps wondering if it would be safe to draw his attention towards him by asking for his leave to depart. He had been a reckless and gallant general once upon a time, secure in the confidence of youth, until failure had come to find him. When he advanced beyond Mordor, he had thought that nothing of what they would encounter at the other side of the Dark Lands could give the victorious Númenórean army any serious trouble, and that he would march triumphantly to the end of the world. Instead, he had found large cities and powerful armies waiting for him, and he had suffered defeat, and lost many men in his undignified retreat through an unknown and hostile land. Even worse, once he managed to return, he did so to the news that Harad had risen against the Númenóreans during his absence, and that only the King’s timely arrival had been able to save Balbazer’s men from being besieged in the Second Wall. After the situation was under control, only Pharazôn’s irrepressible curiosity about the foreign lands he had found, and the need for his intelligence in this new enterprise of the Golden King had been able to save him. He was aware of it, and was doing his best to appear as useful as possible, telling Pharazôn of stories he had heard from prisoners, who seemed to keep some collective memories of their kingdom having been twice invaded from the North, by warriors who dwelt beyond the white mountains. And Pharazôn had listened to him.

“Belzamer”, he said. The man tensed.

“Yes, my lord King?”

“How long will our provisions last?”

“Er… well, if we start reducing them to half-rations…”

“No.” If the wretch wanted to inflate the numbers by any means, they were probably not good. “I will ask again: how long will our provisions, with rations designed to keep men strong and ready to fight and withstand the hardships of the weather, be able to last from now?”

“A month, perhaps a month and a half. Two, if we are careful”, he added with what he probably intended as a bright smile, but came out looking like a grimace instead.

“Then, let us be careful”, Pharazôn replied, sizing him with a cold glare that belied the fire rising inside him. “We can start by not wasting any more food on those who serve no purpose. Like you, Belzamer. You are a general but you do not lead. You are a soldier but you do not fight. You are my aide but you do not give me useful information. Brave men are volunteering to risk their lives to find a way across the mountains every day, but you prefer to stay here by the fireside.”

Belzamer went pale. Though he was standing far from the hearth, and therefore in a relatively cold environment, a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.

“I… will volunteer if you wish me to, my lord King.”

“Excellent initiative.” Pharazôn smiled ironically. “You may go now.”

Being angry at Belzamer, however, did not appease his bad mood, much less assuage his worries. The man may not have been the best of advisors, but at the end of the day, it was Pharazôn who had chosen to heed his words. And if the might of Númenor were to crash against a mountain range, it would be his defeat, not anyone else’s.

A month. This meant that soon he would have to make a decision to go back, or they would risk total disaster if they were not able to find provisions in time. Even if they should find a way to penetrate the obstacles and forged ahead, they could not be sure of when they would find anything to eat at the other side, or even if they would. Wherever he looked, there were only mountains and more mountains, with a dark aura of stormclouds perpetually covering their white peaks.

Pacing around the room, Pharazôn did an effort to recall the fragments of tales that Belzamer had told him. They had mentioned two great invasions from the past, and a third one, the greatest of them all, which would one day put an end to the kingdom forever. The pattern reminded him of old legends, like those whose memory the Faithful kept in their libraries full of mouldy scrolls. Pharazôn had never trusted legends much, as he knew that even a kernel of truth was easily distorted into the most unexpected shapes, though he had to admit that it had flattered his vanity to think of himself as the third and greatest of invaders in the lore of this unknown people. As always, he had set to this task with nothing but the unstoppable strength of his conviction, which had been enough for the wars he had fought until then. But this was no longer a mere war: from the moment he had passed beyond the borders of every map drawn by his twenty-four generations of ancestors, and whether he believed in it or not, he had entered the realm of legend, both that of Rhûn and Númenor. And in the world of legend, there was no longer place for wilful and capable generals with well-equipped armies. Gods and heroes battled demons and monsters, and Pharazôn would only find a place for himself if he was found worthy to belong to either of those categories.

A chill crossed the Golden King’s spine, even as he stood so close to the flames that their heat made his face flush red. Which one would he be? If the legends of the Faithful were any indication, the gods and heroes of a certain people were inevitably destined to become the demons and the monsters of the other side. Melkor, the Great God himself, was seen by their friends the Elves as Morgoth, the most powerful demon who had ever been created, and the most harmful and evil. For the people of Rhûn, this greatest of invaders would be another Morgoth, coming to fulfil the prophecies that heralded the violent end of their civilization. He would cloak himself under that guise if this was to his advantage, and he would not feel uncomfortable with it. But what if the Númenóreans, his own people, thought the same of him? So far, he had done some unpopular things, but their hearts were still mostly with him. His soldiers loved him dearly, and he had basked in their admiration. Would he be a demon for all of them, too, a monster they lived in terror of, whose name would scare their children into eating their dinner and going to bed?

It is impossible to please everyone, he remembered Zigûr’s words, on one of their last conversations before his departure. But Men have a remarkable trait that no other kindred possesses, and it is their ability to accept change. You see that my temple is full, that many accept my doctrine every day, and that those who do not are isolated and resort to desperate measures. Why is that? Because they see that it works. Make something work, and Men will accept it, unless they are so taken by the teachings of the Elves that they have become like them, a stagnant, dying race.

He did not know about the rest of Númenor, but Pharazôn’s soldiers had always been ready to accept anything that worked, from the worship of the Lord of Battles in the distant past to their general’s famously unorthodox tactics in more recent times. To stand before an impenetrable mountain range day after day, unable to cross it or surround it while their provisions dwindled fast, under the command of someone who did not know how to extricate them from this situation– now that, for them, would be far more unacceptable.

Reaching a decision, Ar Pharazôn abandoned his tent, and ordered two of the guards who stood at the gate to follow him.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

He had threatened Belzamer with starvation just because he had been angry, but the truth was that a sizeable part of their resources had been allocated to mouths who had not played any role in the expedition so far, and whose presence had been greatly contested, though they had not come of their own free will. They were Haradrim, about sixty in total; all prisoners from the last campaign. Pharazôn had given strict orders to keep them alive, so they had been clothed and fed –some of them forcefully, the captain in charge told him- and kept under shelter. Still, they had never been untied, to prevent them from finding a way to kill themselves and their companions, and they looked quite filthy and miserable. The stench alone made one of the men retreat, muttering a curse.

One of the barbarians –a former leader, if his recollections were true- looked up at him as soon as he became aware of his presence. The bravado with which he had cursed the king of Númenor when he was captured, swearing revenge in the name of his many generations of descendants unto the ending of time had been left behind somewhere in his warm country. Instead, there was a strange mixture of emotion in his miserable features, between the most abject fear and the wildest hope. Next to him, another man was mumbling in broken Adûnaic, and as Pharazôn drew closer, his mumbling grew in intensity. He only caught one word: cold.

“You will be warm very soon”, he said, wondering why he did not entertain more doubts about what he was about to do. The truth was that he had sacrificed countless bulls to the Lord of Battles in the past, and now that he looked closely at those men, he did not see much in them that distinguished them from animals.

The news that the preparations for a large sacrifice were underway spread fast across the camp. Tongues wagged as the altar was established and consecrated by the priests, and Zigûr’s sacred fire was brought in to kindle it, using most of their remaining firewood reserves. When the hour of the summons came, almost the whole army was already there.

Pharazôn scrutinised the looks of those who stood closest to him, trying to gauge the general mood. The results were cautiously optimistic. Many soldiers were curious, others exultant, and only a few of them looked apprehensive at what was going to happen. When the first prisoners were dragged in towards the altar, some turned up their nose at the stench or jeered, while most kept a religious silence.

He led the prayers personally, together with the two priests who flanked him and their attendants. It was not quite the same as the traditional chants, but they had learned the new words easily enough in Harad, and were quite content to repeat them now, joining their voices to those of their comrades. Men had the ability to accept change.

The prisoner who had met his glance earlier was struggling with his bonds and with the men who held them, but his strength after the last months could not compare with the puniest of bulls Pharazôn had handled in the past. Still, he had something the bulls did not: a voice, and as his spirit returned to him in his desperation, he began cursing at him in both his barbarian dialect and in Adûnaic.

“Be quiet, or I will cut your tongue first and then kill you” the King hissed as the victim was thrown on his back against the altar. The moment of fear and doubt as the meaning of his threat sunk in was all he needed: speaking the words that Zigûr had taught him, he slit the throat with precision, and stood aside while one of the priests stepped in and extended the golden basin to receive the trickling red fluid. The victim shook in agony for a while further, then went limp as the blood left his body. The flames of the altar barely rose as the basin was emptied, but they roared to the high heavens when they received the corpse.

“Bring in the next”, he ordered. The chants had faltered slightly, but he had no time to waste in such details and considerations. The second struggling victim was brought in, and then the third, the fourth, the fifth, until he lost count of how many had died by his hand. Some were listless, and did not oppose any resistance, for the will to live had deserted them long ago. Others, however, struggled in panic, or even became defiant like the first man. Most of those did not speak Adûnaic, so their cries differed little from the bellowing of the bulls, but the few who did interfered with the ceremony, and had to be silenced in more forceful ways.

The stench of burned meat was suffocating, though fortunately the mountain winds did not let it linger for long, blowing it away from their vicinity. Now and then, more wood had to be brought in, as the fire was about to be buried under the piled bodies. At some point, they had to pause the ceremony, for it did not seem as if even the sacred flames would be able to take any more, and the head priest expressed the opinion that Melkor’s hunger had already been sated.

Pharazôn shook his head. In the midst of this carnage, he felt as if a higher spirit had entered his body, transforming him into one of those larger-than-life beings of popular stories. All of a sudden, he had no doubts, no second thoughts, nothing but the inflexible determination of he who knew he was elevating his mortal existence to the rank of myth.

“Throw more wood into the fire”, he ordered, fingering the neck of a young man, little more than a boy in Númenórean years, in search of the artery. He was struggling so much that it was difficult to find the right spot, but instead of having him pinned down, Pharazôn sought his eye.

“Stay still, and it will end quickly” he told him. “Keep moving, and you will die a horrible death.”

The voice of the priest claiming that it was useless to waste his breath died in his mouth when the victim did exactly as Pharazôn said, growing as still as if he had been struck dumb. As he sunk the knife, he heard the priests and the assistants exchange awed whispers behind his back. When this corpse was thrown with the others, the flames suddenly rose higher than before, consuming the piled remains which had threatened to extinguish the fire. So huge was the blaze that the chants briefly stopped, then resumed with a greater intensity.

Pharazôn exulted, confirmed in his instinctive knowledge that the sacrifices could not stop until the last of the doomed souls had been vowed to the Lord of Battles. Until then, the flames would devour every carcass, every limb, every drop of blood until there was nothing left but ashes.

Life is the most powerful of all sacrifices.

Far in the distance, he heard a cry, then other shouts joining the first, but he paid no heed to the growing commotion until he was done. Turning away from the last victim’s dead body, he called for a basin of water to wash his hands, covered in gore up to the elbows. Then, he walked towards the other side of the platform, to a spot where the air was less darkened by the fumes, and gazed ahead.

“Miracle!” a man was shouting. Almost everyone was looking away from the altar, towards the mountains that loomed over their heads. Many were pointing at the sky, and as Pharazôn followed the direction of their fingers, he realized what had attracted their attention. The dark mass of clouds which had crowned the peaks like the diadem of a barbarian king had evaporated, leaving a bright sun to shine over a pure white landscape.

Beside him, the floor rumbled as the priests and the attendants fell to their knees in unison.

“Ar Pharazôn the Golden, Face of Melkor, deliver us from darkness and lead us to victory!” the head priest prayed. The others followed his lead, and though the soldiers were too far away to hear their prayers soon they, too, spontaneously broke in a renewed rendition of their own chants, their echo resounding long and deep in the hollow valley.

Pharazôn walked until he stood at the edge of the platform. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew the smoke away, and his golden ceremonial armour reflected the light of the sun. Wherever he set his eye, every single glance was turned towards him, shining with religious awe and adoration. As he made a sign to speak, everybody fell silent.

“Men of Númenor, here I stand before you, after mastering the secret of true sacrifice! From this day on, there is no force on this Earth which may hinder us, whether mortal or immortal, not even the gods themselves! The whole world will bow before our might, and tremble at the mere whisper of our name. No one, from the furthermost East to the forbidden West, will be able to withstand the might of Númenorean arms!”

The answering roar was deafening. If any of those men saw him as a demon, he thought, his heart full to bursting with a fierce, triumphant joy, they were lost among the thousands who hailed him as a god. They would follow him across the mountains and into the land that lay beyond, and even farther on, across other mountains and kingdoms greater than this one. And then, like Melkor himself, he would be King of the World, and every man, woman and child three thousand years from now would know his name.

His choice was made, he thought, watching attentively how the blood slowly trickled away from his fingers and into the water of the basin. He had chosen the legend over the man, to be worshipped as a god and abhorred as a demon, instead of standing between the two as a mere, ordinary mortal. And whatever it may cost him, Pharazôn knew that he would live with that choice until he achieved immortality, or became trapped in everlasting darkness.