Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

---

The Land of the Undying

The story is almost over now. This means, there are very few chances left of letting me know if you liked it!

---

 

The waters of the Great Sea stood still. There were no currents, no hint of a breeze in the air, as if the world had ground to a halt as they approached its last edge. On the morning of their departure, after both the Western and Northern shipyards had finished vomiting ships, the fleet had spread across the available space in a military formation made of rows of closed lines, like an enormous net cast to catch some legendary sea monster. Then, however, its advance had begun slowing down, almost maddeningly so, for rowing was the only way to penetrate this thick calm, and even though the galley slaves were driven hard, sometimes they had the unnerving feeling that they were not moving at all. This infuriated the captain of Ar Pharazôn’s ship, who unleashed his wrath upon the backs of the hapless rowers, blaming their laziness for their plight. Deep inside, however, the King could perceive that this was nothing but an outlet for the growing unease which was taking hold of him and the other members of the war council as the day progressed.

“If calm is the only defence the Baalim can muster against us, then they are even more unworthy of godhood than I believed”, the former Golden General snorted, with a tone of bravado he had mastered in his youth in the mainland. Just like back then, his words gave heart to others, though his own remained unresponsive. As he laid down in his bed that night and tried to catch some sleep, his skin covered in a thick layer of perspiration from the heat, he found himself wishing he was facing real monsters, or even a raging gale with thunder and deadly whirlwinds. For this would at least have engaged his warrior pride, and the struggle for survival and mastery might have brought back the best of that young general who never surrendered and managed to prevail despite all odds, beloved by his men and admired by his enemies. He would feel alive, truly alive as he had not been in years - and for that feeling, he thought in a moment of mad frustration, it might even be worth it to pile immortality together with his Island and his empire and raise the stakes of his gamble.

Instead of that, the heavy calm persisted, and the silence, broken only by the regular splash of the oars, the crack of the whip, and the odd shout or cry that followed, grew more and more unbearable in time. Ar Pharazôn cursed the Baalim a hundred times for this. Through their twisted manoeuvres, they wanted to make him feel as if he was trying in vain to force and bend the immutable rules of the world, like a fish who belonged in the Sea and yet tried to swim upriver, only to get nowhere. You are not a hero or a great conqueror, but a fool, the suffocating air seemed to be whispering in his ear. And it will not be long until your men see you for what you are.

Early on the next morning, the captain informed him that they had not managed to cover much distance during the night, and that the slaves were exhausted. Soon afterwards, one of the admirals came to report that most of the ships were having similar issues. Before an increasingly uncomfortable audience, who suddenly seemed to find everything more interesting than their colleague’s speech, he suggested turning back, regrouping in the Bay, and waiting for the wind to change.

“Very well.” The King’s voice was a deadly hiss as he fixed them both with his glance. “If you think that we cannot reach the shores of the Blessed Realm with the rowing manpower that we possess, perhaps you will welcome the chance of adding your strength to theirs.” As they were dragged away, he turned towards the rest of his council, who were still busy fleeing his gaze. “Are there any more objections to our present course of action?”

The silence was so absolute, that the pleading and protestations of loyalty of the two men could still be heard in the distance long after they had disappeared from sight.

“The wind will not change. The Baalim control it”, he explained to the others. “We are facing a powerful foe who controls wind, water and rain, so those are hurdles we will have to overcome in our way to attain our goal. But no matter how long it takes for us to arrive, we will. Do you see their White Mountain, gleaming in the horizon? We will reach it, and once we do, we will conquer it with the help of the Great Deliverer. And then we will control the wind, the water and the rain ourselves, and Númenor will reign supreme under the sky!”

There was a burst of renewed enthusiasm after this, which might not have been entirely feigned. Perhaps because of it, that afternoon the mountain loomed larger, and the following morning Ar Pharazôn promised an extravagant reward to the first man who saw land and reported it. By now, the fleet was leaving a deadly trail in their wake: the bodies, thrown overboard, of all the men who collapsed from exhaustion, whose numbers increased even as they moved closer to their destiny. Zigûr had spoken true when he had revealed the power of sacrifice to him.

On the afternoon of the third day, two ships reported having seen land at the same time. Ar Pharazôn solved the dispute by rewarding both equally, glad in his heart that his prize was closer to his grasp. That night, however, as he tossed and turned in his bed, his good mood was gradually eroded, and, once again, the old uncertainties started gathering over his mind like clouds.

Please, stay here, Father, Gimilzagar had begged, a sincere emotion veiling his eyes as he set them on his. Your fleet sinks, and your expedition ends in failure and disaster, Zimraphel spat, her voice brimming with vindictive anger after he hurt her in that balcony. If you doubt the wisdom of your enterprise, my lord King, perhaps you should not blame me, but the one who suggested it to you, Elendil’s grave advice, too, reverberated in his ears in the stillness of the night. Perhaps you should arrest him, see through his pretence of meekness and loyalty, and return to the path of true wisdom before it is too late. They were all inside his mind now, the voices he had laughed off, ignored, silenced because he could not face what they were saying. Because he could no longer afford the luxury of stopping in his tracks, and renouncing the enterprise which had become the ultimate objective of his life, the crowning achievement that would compensate for everything he had lost.

And he had lost so much, an insidious voice reminded him. Zimraphel’s love, Amandil and Elendil’s friendship, his conquests, the will to become the greatest king of Númenor and a hero for its people. In a way, he had even lost his life, which had trickled through his fingers while he prepared for immortality, and grew afraid of anything that could pose a threat to it. Now, he saw in a brief instant of clarity, his desire had turned into a chain, whose crushing weight he could not escape. In one of his lapses into a troubled slumber, he dreamed of Númenor sinking underneath the waves after he sailed away from it, just like in Amandil’s visions when they were younger. Pharazôn was no prophet, but even he could find a deep truth in this dream: he had to keep going forwards, because he had burned all the bridges to the world he left behind.

Turning back is always an option, Pharazôn. The old Amandil who haunted his nights ever since the lord of Andúnië had disappeared from the Island loomed over him, his gaze narrowed in contempt. Except for monsters who choose to doom their people and all their loved ones rather than admit failure. Oh, but I forget - you no longer have loved ones, or a people, do you? You turned your back on your wife, your son, and all the Númenóreans in the Island, as if their fate meant nothing to you. I do not know what is the most pathetic of all, that you believe you can win, or that you think they will forgive you if only you die heroically enough.

“Silence!”, he hissed. In his turmoil, he spoke aloud, and his voice reverberated in the emptiness of his cabin, causing the man who slept by the door to stir. “You are nothing. No one. You are dead, and you can no longer give me lessons. Go back to the darkness where you dwell, and where your precious Baalim might soon join you.”

Still trembling in rage, he stood up from his bed, and ordered his aides to dress and arm him. Once he was ready, he climbed the stairs until he reached the highest vantage point on deck, where he leaned on the railing, his eyes fixed on the lines of the coast of the Blessed Realm. They were now much closer to their destination, and as he scrutinized the land in search of signs of the enemy, his gaze suddenly fell upon a lonely dot.

“Is that… a man?” he asked his aides, pointing in that direction. Long ago, Ar Pharazôn had realized that Zigûr’s youth enchantments were no longer able to preserve the eyesight that he used to have, so it did not surprise him when all three men nodded almost instantly.

“Yes, my lord King, I do think so!” one of them replied. “He is standing on the beach, alone, as if he was expecting us. Perhaps he could be an envoy of the Baalim.” His forehead curved into a frown. “This is their land, though. Why would they send us a lone envoy instead of fortifying the coasts with their fleets and armies? It makes no sense.”

Ar Pharazôn’s lips curved into a smile, the easiest cover for all his misgivings.

“Well, they have never been invaded before. Until now, they probably did not believe that such a thing was possible, that those naked savages they abandoned to their fate would grow powerful enough to take a fleet here and demand their due. After today, they will know better.”

As he spoke, the admiral who had been promoted after his colleague’s disgrace stopped in his tracks, waiting for the King to acknowledge his presence. When Pharazôn beckoned to him, he bowed low.

“All the admirals, captains, and crews await your orders, my lord King.”

“I will be landing in that beach.” Ar Pharazôn declared. “Your squadron will land with me, but the rest of the fleet will blockade the coast and wait.”

The man bowed again, so fast that it was obvious he was afraid of any sign of hesitation being mistaken for disagreement.  Belatedly, the King remembered the real trust, undimmed by fear, which shone in his men’s eyes back in the mainland, adding this to the list of losses he would take compensation for today.

“Go”, he dismissed him. “Bring me my sword”, he ordered next, as soon as the admiral was gone.

Only once that he was alone, Ar Pharazôn rested his weight on the railing, and allowed himself to let go of the deep breath he was holding.

 

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

The Undying Lands, true to their reputation, were fair to look upon. The beach where they landed was made of white, fine sand, and beyond it, there were rolling hills covered by green and abundant vegetation as far as their eyes could reach, only restrained in its exuberance by what looked like careful gardening and pruning. Ar Pharazôn’s men kept discovering trees and flowers no man had ever seen before, and discussing their findings in whispers, as if afraid of their own voices. Soon, explorers brought notice of a town nearby, set at the centre of a valley with no defences whatsoever. They had found no sign of its inhabitants, so they had approached it cautiously until they could check that it was empty. The evacuation had been recent, as evidenced by the sight of work hastily put away and left to lie where it fell, abandoned workshops, and even half-eaten food spread on the tables. Still, all subsequent exploration parties could not find traces of the evacuees anywhere, and after the last ones returned, Ar Pharazôn ordered his army to make camp in the abandoned settlement.

While they made themselves comfortable, organizing their duties, lying in soft beds of intricate workmanship and nibbling cautiously at the strange food until they were satisfied that it could be eaten –a young, loudmouth soldier was heard claiming it would make them immortal, though some of his older companions unpacked their biscuits and stubbornly refused to have anything to do with it-, the King sent messages back to the fleet with orders to send reinforcements, and to dispatch squadrons of ships to explore the coasts until they could have a more accurate lay of the land. He also sent new search parties, ostensibly to look for the elusive Elves and find out what lay beyond the hills, but in truth to deal with the enigma that bothered him the most: the man he and his aides had seen from the ship. Since they had set foot in this place, he seemed to have vanished without a trace. The squadron commanders had soon reached the conclusion that he had not been an emissary but a spy, who had now fled to give his masters news about the size of their force. Pharazôn acknowledged that this theory had the appearance of logic, but he was not sure that the kingdom of the Baalim was ruled by logic.

As it appeared, his men were even less sure of this than he was, for the longer they stayed in that place, the more superstitious tales began circulating among them, their details growing increasingly lurid after the first night. One of the workshops had been full of life-sized statues, sculpted and painted with extraordinary realism, and somehow the fright they had given the first soldiers who came upon them had resulted in accounts of those statues growing alive after sunset and prowling around the place, spying their movements and patiently waiting until one of them was alone or lowered his guard to drag him away into the shadows. A man was sick in the stomach, and his companions had been quick to attribute his illness to the food he had eaten. Soon, they were digging holes in the ground to rid themselves of the remainder of the leftover provisions, and more men began to feel unwell, convinced that an evil poison was eating at their innards. There was talk of ghosts appearing and disappearing at will, and of a silent army of immortals hiding behind the trees, only kept at bay by their sacred amulets and their loud prayers to the Great Deliverer.

All those morale problems presented Ar Pharazôn with an unexpected chance to step up into the role of leader. During the time they spent there, he made sure to eat Elven food in front of the soldiers, demolished one of the statues to prove it was made of perishable materials, walked alone through the empty streets, and even ventured into the woods with the patrols. This did little to dispel his own concerns, but it made him feel more alive than he had been in a very long time.

On the evening of the second day, as he was dining in a magnificent table he had found in the large house he had claimed as headquarters, a great commotion reached his ears. Immediately, his aides stood up to alert, and asked for permission to go outside and inquire about the cause of the ruckus, but Ar Pharazôn had already risen from his seat himself before they could finish talking.

When he appeared on the porch, he saw that many of the soldiers were congregated there. At their centre stood the leader of one of the last patrols he had sent, and behind him, two of his men held what at first sight appeared to be a woman. A second appraisal, however, was enough to check this impression: she was not a woman but an Elf, a she-Elf, or whatever the right term to designate a female of that race was. Her hair was dark, and braided in ornate patterns that reminded Pharazôn of the workmanship of the table where he had just eaten; her eyes, the exact same hue of grey as those of Tar Palantir and the lords of Andúnië. Her features were very harmonious and delicate, like the sculpture he had destroyed, but the rest of her body did not seem to fit them at all. She was dressed in what looked like men’s clothes, tightly wrapped against her limbs, which appeared strong and lithe like those of a warrior. Like Merimne with the face of a Court beauty, he found himself thinking, nonplussed.

The soldiers, of course, were even more unsettled by this than he was. To them, it was as if they had caught the visible, tangible embodiment of the ghosts and evil forces which had been frightening them for days. They held her with more force than necessary, jeered and dragged her in vindictive glee, and it was obvious that she had already been hit more than once.

“Who are you?” he asked. The she-Elf immediately turned towards the source of the voice, and her eyes widened when she saw him. Soon, she was spouting out a torrent of words that were completely unintelligible to his ears.

“Address the King of Númenor in proper Adûnaic, you spawn of evil!” one of the soldiers who held her shouted, striking her on the face. She raised it again at once, looking more bewildered than in pain.

The next words she spoke were also unintelligible, but Ar Pharazôn had been acquainted with the house of Andúnië long enough as to be aware that they were in a different language from the first. He held on to that knowledge, searching his mind for the implications.

“If you can speak the two Elven tongues, this means that you have sailed here from Middle-Earth. And if you have lived in Middle-Earth, you know about the tongue of the Men of the West” he deduced. “So, let us try again. Who are you?”

Instead of shifty, the she-Elf looked exasperated.

“I…. Elwen”, she declared. “You… speak… I… thought.”

The soldier who had struck her before looked very much like he would have wanted to do so again.

“Oh, I certainly speak” Ar Pharazôn snorted. “You, on the other hand, babble like a child, and yet it will have to be enough. I need intelligence, and you will give it to me, she-Elf, whether you want or not.”

“We should sacrifice her to the Great Deliverer, my lord King”, the leader of the patrol, who had stood beside him for all this time, suggested. All around them, there were fierce murmurations of agreement. Elwen’s eyes grew wide again: she looked appalled now. Pharazôn wondered how long it would take her to realize that she should be afraid.

Just as he was having that thought, she made a sudden move, exhibiting a speed and strength that her captors had obviously not been expecting. The moment she was free from their grasp, she turned on Pharazôn, and grabbed his shoulder with one hand, while

the other pulled at the silver chain in his neck. This revealed the precious stone engraved in his old good luck amulet, the one Zimraphel had gifted to him when they were both young lovers. It shone under the torchlight just for an instant before she was yanked back by her captors, and Ar Pharazôn’s aide pressed a naked blade against her throat.

The she-Elf, however, did not seem daunted by that either. It was as if the blade, the men who held her, the ruckus around her did not even exist in her world, only him. Her eyes had fixed themselves on his with a burning intensity, an urgency which could not help but give him pause.

“Inzilbêth”, she said. “Grandmother… Inzilbêth. Child of Men.”

His surprise gave way to shock, which he needed a moment to suppress.

“How do you know that?” he hissed. He did not enjoy being made to feel out of sorts, as if he was but one more of the superstitious soldiers in his army. “Tell me, or by the time I am done with you your soul will be so marred that your Baalim will not want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.” Finally, he saw a flicker of fear in her eyes, and this made him relieved enough to smile. “See? I know some things about your kindred, too.”

“Let her go. Please.”

It was a weak voice, broken and cavernous like that of a man who no longer had the strength left in his lungs left for more, and yet Pharazôn would have recognized its owner anywhere in the world. He froze, even as the men who were closer to him stood back, looking as if they had seen a ghost. And, for once, those superstitious fools were right, the realization hit him.

“I am here. I will tell you everything that you wish to know.” The old man was hobbling towards him, his body so bent with age that he looked like he might fall at any moment, but when he came to face Pharazôn, the King of Númenor realized that his eyes shone with the sheer willpower that kept him upright. His features were as wrinkled as they had been in the world of dreams, and an unkempt grey beard covered most of them. “I am the envoy of the Valar, not her. Her presence here is a mistake, and harming her will avail you nothing.”

It took Ar Pharazôn a while to regain his composure enough to speak again.

“Bring both of them inside. I will interrogate them straight away”, he ordered, turning his back on Amandil to retreat into the privacy of his quarters.

 

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

As they were taken in, Amandil and the she-Elf were having an animated argument in their language, which did not even stop once they found themselves in his presence. Ar Pharazôn would have bristled at the insolence, if he had not been feeling so out of sorts.

“So”, he interrupted them, willing his voice to sound calm. “It seems you went running to your Baalim, after all. And they had a poor way of repaying you.”

Amandil hobbled towards a chair and sat on it without waiting for an invitation, as if he believed that the curse of old age which had fallen upon him had given him the right to be treated like some revered elder.

“The… the Valar did not do this to me. It was…” His voice dissolved in a fit of dry coughing, and the she-Elf hovered over him like a mother hen, though there was nothing she could do to alleviate his difficulty. After a while, the cough subsided on its own, and he wiped his eyes with a wrinkled hand. “It was the price I had to pay for being here, in the land of the immortals. Even in this distant place, so close to our own world, our life burns faster, and our vitality deserts us sooner.”

Pharazôn ignored this disturbing information, to focus on the more down-to-earth details.

“What do you mean, ‘in this distant place, so close to our own world’? Where are we, exactly?”

Amandil seemed to hesitate, then sighed.

“There is no point in keeping anything from you, when I am trying to convince you of my honesty. We are in an island, as your fleet will soon discover. The Valar do not dwell here, and neither do their mightiest servants, or the highest among the Eldar. This is the home of the Exiles, the people who once rebelled and left their homes to live in the world of mortals. Their houses, their art, their customs, are not so different from ours, for they have been touched by mortality. That is why they accepted me, and suffered to lay eyes upon what I have become.”

“How generous of them”, Pharazôn snorted, serving himself a large cup of wine, which had been mixed from a barrel of Elven-spirits his men had found in that house’s cellar. “So, where are the Baalim? Which is the most expedient route to reach them, and where are their armies waiting? How strong are their defences, and how many soldiers do they have at their disposition?”

This time, it was the she-Elf who began talking gibberish, but Amandil silenced her before Pharazôn could.

“Forgive my friend, my lord King. She…” He winced, as if suddenly in pain. “She was not supposed to be here. No immortal lives were supposed to be at risk.”

“If they truly are immortal, they cannot be at risk, can they?” Pharazôn arched an eyebrow. Amandil ignored the jibe.

“Once, she was shipwrecked close to our Island, and a young girl took care of her, hiding her until she was strong enough to leave. She developed a strong bond with this mortal, so strong that she gave her this.” For a moment, Pharazôn’s turmoil had been so great that he had even forgotten that Zimraphel’s amulet was still hanging, exposed, over his chest. In an instinctive move perfected through the years, he grabbed it, then realized the truth hidden in Amandil’s words and let it go as if it burned him. “The girl’s name was Inzilbêth.”

Inzilbêth. Grandmother, she had said. So the wretch knew who he was.

“Even across the Great Sea, she could feel her joys and her griefs, and wept when she died. The day she heard that the King of Men who wanted to invade the Blessed Realm and defy the Valar was her grandson, she could not believe it. She could not accept that someone as pure as that girl could have given birth to such evil. So, even though I and others warned her against it, she hid in the woods when her people left, determined to meet you.”

Pharazôn’s eyes widened. Immortal, and yet so foolish. Zigûr had been right about the Elves too, he thought.

“Tell her that the Princess Inzilbêth was a mere vessel for Ar Gimilzôr’s twisted seed”, he spat. “But do thank her on my behalf: her stone did save my life a few times, to her misfortune and that of her people.” She looked a little paler now, though Pharazôn could not be sure whether she had understood his words or not. “Now, back to the Baalim…”

“The Valar are in Valinor, an hour’s sailing away from this island. All those who have been evacuated are there, too, and you will never lay hands on any of them unless you storm Taniquetil itself, but you would not be able to do that with a million ships full of soldiers.”

“Sooner or later, they will have to come down. Your Baalim may not need to eat, but apparently the Elves do, and this comes from regular crops, no matter how blessed and bountiful”, Pharazôn pointed out, gesturing at the half-eaten plate of food. “I will destroy their cities and lay their countryside to waste, while I arrange to receive my supplies by the sea-route.”

This time, Amandil looked clearly in pain.

“Pharazôn, why won’t you understand that you made a mistake by coming here?” He pointed at himself. “Look at this! Look at me! You will not even last your own siege, and neither will your men. Sauron the Deceiver fooled you: the secret of immortality lies not in this land or in the power of the Valar, who are creatures of his same order, but mightier. It lies in Eru Himself, who cannot be reached by any of us. This was merely a refuge the Valar built for the immortals to live in peace, without mingling with mortals and becoming subject to either the grief of loss, or the envy and hostility of powerful tyrants like you.”

If any of his men had been present, Pharazôn would have struck Amandil for daring to address him in this strain, even though his body looked as if it would break in a million pieces at the first taste of violence. As they were alone, however, except for the she-Elf who stared at him with soulful eyes, he just pretended to laugh.

“And why would that be any less of a lie? Why shouldn’t I believe that the Baalim laid this curse upon you to frighten me and make me despair when I saw you? Who decided to send you here, anyway?”

“I decided to stay here. I let them know I would gladly give away what little remained of my life to convince you… and to save Númenor from the disaster that awaits it if you persist in your path.”

“Lies!” Pharazôn hissed. His fist struck the table, and the delicate glass of the cup was shattered in many jagged shards, to the shock of the she-Elf who watched. “I do not trust a single word coming from my enemies, and least of all from you, a man whose loyalty for others could cancel his loyalty to the Sceptre he swore to serve!”

Amandil, too, was growing angrier and angrier.

“I am not your enemy, Pharazôn! And if I was the traitor you think I am, I would not be here now. I would not have walked freely to your doorstep only so you could know the truth and save yourself!”

Pharazôn shook his head.

“I am sorry, Amandil, but the truth is something that should never be accepted when it comes under the guise of a gift. It must be forced out of others, for only extreme need can test the substance behind both their promises and their threats” he said, standing on his feet. “Now, I will test the power of the Baalim, and learn for myself what it is good for –and where it falls short. You will watch, and be witness of my glory or my fall.”

Amandil did not answer to these words. Instead, Pharazôn could see the light in his grey eyes dimming as he listened, and his body crumpling on its seat in a way that, for a moment, even made him afraid that the former lord of Andúnië’s spirit could be departing it. But it was merely an expression of despair, a deep-seated realization that he could not succeed in his task – that what he believed to be his last chance at redemption was slipping away from his fingers as they spoke. Pharazôn wondered if he would kill him if he had the opportunity, like the Faithful assassin in the temple of Armenelos, and end his King’s life for the sake of his twisted idea of heroism. But the Amandil before him seemed too tired even for that, and it struck Pharazôn that he had never seen him truly defeated until now. And then, even more belatedly, he realized that this did not give him the satisfaction he had expected.

“We will break camp at dawn. It is pointless to waste any more time here” he said, turning towards the doorstep to signal for assistance. “Say goodbye to your friend, Amandil.”

The old man lifted his glance again, so fast that Pharazôn was surprised.

“Why? What… are you going to do with her?”

“I am thankful for the stone that saved my life, though she probably did not intend it to have this purpose”, he explained, gazing a little wistfully at her delicate beauty. “But she is the first Elf we have encountered, and according to you, the only one we will find in a very long time.” The aide on duty called in two men from outside, who came towards her and grabbed her arms to hoist her up. “And the morale of my men requires a sacrifice.”

Amandil’s face blanched.

“You cannot do that. It is… it is both cruel and pointless. An immortal cannot be killed, or sacrificed. She will merely depart her body before you can touch her, and be reborn in a new one!”

“All the better for her and for us, then!” They watched her be dragged away, Pharazôn with indifference; Amandil, with a silent rage and impotence that immediately gave his old friend the clue that he was lying. “I do not bear her any ill will. I am only acting as a war commander here; it is nothing personal.”

“Please, let her go. Do not darken this holy land with such a foul deed”, Amandil begged, the dignity he had exhibited when he acted as envoy of the Baalim all but gone. “She has only found herself in this plight because of me. I was meant to show myself to you as soon as you appeared, and yet I experienced a moment of weakness when I saw your fleet and hid away, afraid of failure.” Once again, the cough wracked his body, and this time Pharazôn realized there were traces of blood in his hand by the time he moved it away from his mouth. “Knowingly or not, she saved your life, and she is an Exile. If she is sent to the Halls of Mandos after disobeying the Valar for a second time, I do not know if she will ever be allowed to leave them.”

Pharazôn shrugged.

“Then blame them, not me, for keeping immortal souls imprisoned against their will” he said. “So far, Zigûr does not seem to have lied in anything concerning them.”

“Kill me”, Amandil hissed, grabbing his tunic in a surprisingly strong grip. In his haste, he lost his balance, and his full weight fell upon Pharazôn and made him trip. “Me, not her. Let me be your sacrifice, for I am the one who is mortal, and ready to leave the Circles of the World. Cannot you see that I am the one whose life is meant to end by your hand, here and now?”

The King of Númenor laid his hands on his shoulders and forced him back on the chair, where he fell like a lifeless sack of barley, his strength deserting him as fast as it had come. All of a sudden, Pharazôn felt a dull fury gather in his chest, not excited by the Baalim, their so-called immortal puppets, or the shadow of failure that haunted his footsteps, but by him. By this man who had once taught him to fight, to survive adversity and to be sceptic of religious babble and inane superstitions of every kind, now reduced to a weak, pathetic mess who could only parrot the lessons others had fed him.

“You are already dead, Amandil”, he spat, before storming out of the room.

 

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

The sacrifice took place in the middle of the night. Just as Amandil had predicted, the she-Elf did not wait long enough for the blade to touch her flesh. The moment she took note of her surroundings, and grew aware of what would happen, her horror turned into pity, and Ar Pharazôn had to do a sudden effort not to squirm under her gaze.

“I cannot save you”, she said, and it took him a while to notice that his mind was able to understand her words, even though they were still in the Elven tongue. More immortal mind tricks, he told himself, trying to break away from the hypnotic quality of her eyes. “And I could not help Inzilbêth. Wherever she is, she is weeping for her children, and she will find no comfort.”

As he raised his hand to strike, her body crumpled, lifeless, on the altar. Around him, the superstitious soldiers stared in awe at the unmarked, untouched corpse, until Pharazôn slit her throat and they could see her blood flow red and warm into the sacrificial basin. This gave them a little courage, and the King took advantage of it.

“You see that they can bleed as we do. You see that their bodies die, and that no matter where their souls go, they can no longer harm us from there” he said. “If this is how the minions of the Baalim look like, we can face them on a battlefield and prevail.”

Slowly, a roar of approval began growing through the ranks, becoming thunderous as the corpse was thrown to the flames and they rose higher to consume it. Then, however, it faltered after the smoke, blacker and thicker than any other smoke he had ever seen, was blown into their faces by a sudden gust of wind. Pharazôn, who was closest to the fire, had to close his eyes and cover his nose to avoid choking with it, and as it continued spreading across the ranks, others followed his example.

“This is the Baalim’s doing”, he spoke again, in a louder voice, once it finally cleared up. “They are using all their power to prevent the smoke of our sacrifices from reaching the Great Deliverer, who is their greatest and most feared enemy. But once they are defeated, we will make the greatest pyre to be ever built, and light it in their own Mountain, from where our god will rejoice, and the rest of the world will tremble!”

Thanks to his quick reaction, spirits were still reasonably high as they broke camp and returned to the beach, where the fleet was still awaiting the last ships who had been sent to explore the coast. Once they were all back, they confirmed Amandil’s story: they were currently on an island, emptied of all its inhabitants, and the land of the Valar lay beyond it, separated by a mere channel. He gave orders to set sail in that direction, and had his men put Amandil on his own ship, where he remained silent and motionless, with only the dull gleam of his eyes to alert others of the fact that his soul still remained inside his body.

The farther they progressed, following the phantom coastline in the direction of the great peak that loomed larger and larger over their heads, the more silent the men grew. Once again, the mood that had gripped their spirits while they traversed the Great Sea seemed to be descending upon them, and even Ar Pharazôn himself felt his spirit battle a renewed onslaught of insecurity. Troubling reports reached him from one ship, then another, informing of the sudden transformation of two of their barbarian slaves into old men. Barely an hour later, there came a third, and the members of the war council began to mutter darkly among themselves.

“Those wretches are merely exhausted from their toil. They cannot tolerate hardship as Númenóreans do”, he dismissed the news flippantly. But the Númenórean admirals and commanders had seen Amandil, and the connection did not escape them.

“If any of you has a better insight to contribute, he is welcome to do so now. Loud and clear, so we all can hear his voice”, Ar Pharazôn frowned, his gaze trailing across those near him. Whenever his eyes met those of somebody else, they flinched and were lowered to the ground. Once satisfied that there would be no dissenters, the King turned his back to them and returned to his cabin, where Amandil awaited him.

“How are they doing it?” he hissed. The former lord of Andúnië shook his head with a bitter smile.

“I told you.” Again, the King longed to strike him.

“How long do you think that a Númenórean can exist in this place without feeling those… effects?” he changed his question, once he managed to calm himself down. Amandil did not reply at first, and for a moment Pharazôn thought that his old friend would simply ignore him. After all, he had nothing to lose anymore, and everything to gain by his own death.

“I could have lived a hundred years more in Númenor, if I had been so inclined. Here, I have lived three”, he finally answered. “All your short-lived barbarians could be dead in a matter of days, especially if you keep ripping every ounce of strength away from their unfortunate bones.” The bitter smile appeared in his lips once more. “After that, you will have to row your own ships for the return journey.”

“I do not care for the return journey. Once victory is in your grasp, there is always a way for everything”, Pharazôn snorted, to cover his turmoil.

“You hear, and yet you do not listen”, Amandil said, all traces of humour gone. “You cannot win. You are going to cause the deaths of so many! You will be the general who doomed his soldiers, the king who doomed his people, the husband and father who doomed…” His voice faded as Pharazôn’s hands closed over his neck and pushed him against the wall. When he went limp, the King of Númenor thought that this time he was truly dead, but a moment afterwards he could hear the old man gasping for breath.

“You did not seem inclined to doubt your own actions when you abandoned your son to a very messy and painful death”, he retorted vindictively. Taking advantage of Amandil’s horror, he turned away and left him there.

 

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

The three barbarians who had grown old were dead by the next day, and several more were growing wrinkles and grey hairs at an accelerated pace. Still, nobody dared speak a word about it, whether because of sheer fear of the consequences or because they still believed in him, Ar Pharazôn did not care to know. By that time, they had manoeuvred part of the fleet into the wide arm of sea separating the land of the Valar from the island. Another part would lay watch on the Eastern strait, which they had used to go in, while the rear had taken the opposite route West to meet them halfway.

Ar Pharazôn had his ship moored on a large bay, where there was a harbour, much smaller than the one in Sor and yet elegantly built. A handful of ships, of a curious workmanship no one had ever seen before, lay abandoned there, and soon his men were towing them away to make way for their own vessels. As they were busy with these endeavours, the scouts he had sent returned with similar news as everywhere else they had been: the city was abandoned, and they had not met a single soul in its houses and streets. Previously, Ar Pharazôn had believed them to be cowards, but now a dark part of his mind was beginning to re-evaluate his assessment. If things were as Amandil had claimed, then time could be on their side. It might be his feverish imagination, and the pull of superstition that had laid dormant in his heart for years, but when he looked at himself in the mirror, he thought he saw lines which had not been there before, and his hazel curls touched by silver.

“What do we do now, my lord King?” one of the senior admirals asked him after the scouts had finished their report. “Do we wait for them to send emissaries with their terms?”

Ar Pharazôn frowned.

“No. We will disembark and proceed in full strength until we find them, and then we will fight them”, he determined. Speed was of the essence, as it had never been in any of his campaigns. “Pass the orders to all the commanders under your authority.”

Without even pausing to look at the man’s bow, the King returned to his quarters. There, Amandil was lying on the bed, curled in a fetal position. He had fallen asleep, but his face was still wet with tears. Feeling himself taken by a renewed form of vexation, Ar Pharazôn shook him impatiently.

“I am going to disembark now. I cannot be saddled with you anymore, so you will have to stay behind”, he informed him. Amandil did not even seem to have heard, lost in his own disorientation and apathy. “I am going to launch my attack. You will stay behind”, he repeated, louder. “And you can live or die here; whatever you choose, I care not.”

Amandil’s sunken gaze was fixed on his, and there seemed to be some form of understanding in it now, but he still said nothing. Pharazôn swallowed an unexpected knot from his throat.

“I did not kill your son. I gave orders for him to be freed upon my departure for the Forbidden Bay”, he said, not knowing why those words were leaving his mouth. Amandil blinked, as if his mind had relapsed into its previous slow state. Then, after a while, a timid spark of something that was not despair crossed his eyes, and he struggled into a sitting position.

“Do not go. Please. Return to Númenor, save yourself. You still have time left, you are not lost. You are not…” He grabbed Pharazôn’s hand, which he yanked away, already regretting his brief instant of weakness. The moment he did so, he remembered his most recurring dream, and he froze.

When we meet again, I advise you to take my hand. If you do not, no man, demon or god will be able to help you.

He shook his head, desperately trying to clear it.

“Farewell, Amandil”, he said.

 

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

The Mountain of the Baalim was taller than the Meneltarma; taller even than the mountain ranges of Northern Seria, which the Númenóreans had believed to be the end of everything. It was also whiter, not like a snow-covered surface after the sun shone on it, but glowing with a light that did not seem to belong to this world. The more they approached its roots, leaving behind the harbour city to cover several miles up a stone road that meandered through a gentle slope until it reached a second, larger city with taller buildings, the less inclined the Númenórean soldiers were to raise their gazes. Ar Pharazôn, too, kept his eyes low, feeling the stirrings of an irrational fear against which he no longer had any protection, for the amulet the unfortunate Elf had gifted to his grandmother now lay abandoned at the place where she had burned. He had not foreseen how naked he would feel without it, or how her look of pity would become inextricably linked in his mind with the pleading of Amandil’s last gaze, and return to haunt him despite his efforts to keep both of them away.

“Will we… rest here, my lord King?” the youngest of his aides asked him, with hope in his voice. Most of the men in his host were used to cover much larger distances in the mainland, but they were exhausted by this march, even more than they should normally be. Pharazôn, too, was experiencing the pull of a strange force that made him feel as if his limbs were made of lead, nailing him to the ground the more he tried to challenge it. He had been fighting hard to keep an unflappable composure for the benefit of his men, but he did not know for how long he would be able to pretend, and night was already falling upon them.

“Yes, why not? There is a palace standing proud over the other buildings of this city: let us dine there and celebrate the conquest of a new, powerful enemy stronghold”, he declared with a smile. The aide nodded, forcing himself to smile too.

While the largest hall of the palace was being fitted for the banquet, Ar Pharazôn came upon a high balcony. From it, he had a good view of the ghost city, the road, the surrounding countryside, and even the other city they had left behind, with its harbour opening on the Sea. Every inch of this landscape was now teeming with the multi-coloured sails of the Númenórean fleet, and the successive battalions emerging from the ships’ bowels, who had camped across both cities and filled the space in between with their tents. If strange magic and superstition were not part of the bargain, he told himself, his victory would be a foregone conclusion. The missing population of the cities he had crossed, if combined, would not be enough to fill Umbar, let alone Sor or Armenelos, and they already knew that Elves could be killed, be it temporarily.

And still… the doubts, the questions and apprehensions remained there, crowding his mind despite his calculations. Meanwhile, his men were filled with doubts of their own, or so he realized when he saw that every attempt at breathing life into the feast fell flat. Some of his generals surreptitiously avoided the Elven food they were served, and banqueting songs never went beyond the second verse. Pharazôn wished he had brought Hyarnustari wine from his ship, for Elven wine was regarded with suspicion, and those who drank it felt melancholy instead of merry.

“Let us call it a night”, he said at last, rising from his seat in surrender. “We need to be rested for what awaits us tomorrow.”

That night, however, rest was nowhere to be found, even in the large, comfortable bed of the high prince who had once called this place his home. Whenever he tried to close his eyes, the King of Númenor was tormented by ghosts, no longer those of Elwen and Amandil alone, but many others. Some of them were very familiar, others less so, and some he had entirely forgotten until now. He saw a girl from the desert plains of Harad, crumbling on the floor with her hand still brandishing the knife. She was the first person he had killed, to save Amandil- or had she been the second? He also saw the old Adherbal, and the loyal Barekbal, who came when he was needed and died in his arms with no regrets, and Merimne, old as Amandil was now, yet levelling him with a gaze of proud superiority, as if she was aware of some important truth that escaped him. Lord Hiram, the raving, lunatic traitor of Forostar, held his son’s headless corpse in his arms, an arrow protruding from his own chest. Unknown barbarians gazed at him with fear and hatred as their lifeblood oozed away from their wounds and their bodies went up in flames. We are eagerly waiting for you to join us, Emperor of the West, a proud princess from a distant land spat, a vengeful light shining in her eyes.

“I will not die”, he mumbled, feverishly. “I will not die.”

You will, Gimilzagar said, in a state of great agitation that mirrored his own. And then my life will be worth nothing. You brought me to this world unasked, then you forsook your responsibility and threw me away like a broken toy.

What was the nature of this ambition? Gimilkhâd asked, bewildered. Where did it come from, my son, how did it creep into your soul to infect it like this? You already had all I dreamed of, all I ever desired, and yet you were not happy. You had to ruin everything.

You have become an enemy of the gods, Melkyelid chimed in, her eyes widening in fright. A man cannot fight the gods without invoking a terrible curse upon himself and his lineage. All the prayers I said for your sake, all the sacrifices I made, are lost as milk drops on a raging Sea.

I knew when my time had come, General, and I had the guts to slit my own throat, Merimne spat. You have only proved brave enough to slit the throats of others.

I died for you because I trusted you not to let my death be in vain, my lord prince, Barekbal nodded gravely, for the first time agreeing with her. But now, all your soldiers will die for the sake of a delusion.

Coward. Zimraphel’s black eyes seemed to swallow every light around him, and he remembered a hallucination he had had when he was young and foolish and tried to induce the visions with the sacred herb of the priests. Had that been a glimpse of the future, of this future he was living now? The hair from the back of his neck rose, and he repressed a shudder. You have finally found the end of the world, and now you cannot escape your fate any longer.

“Leave me alone” he hissed, covering his head with the pillow like a child afraid of the dark. But then, a skeletal hand fell on his shoulder, and his whole body trembled. Hesitantly, he looked up again, and at first he thought that Zimraphel was still there. As he blinked, however, he realized that something was wrong: his wife’s eyes had not been grey, and her features had not exuded this deep sense of vulnerability that threw his senses in disarray when he looked at her. The unknown woman, imperfect replica of the one who had torn herself from his arms mere days ago, was not speaking any words. She was crying, tears rolling down her cheeks and hands pressed against her mouth to choke her sobs.

“You should not be here”, he said. “I never knew you, and you never knew me. You died before I was born, throwing your life away like an Elven fiend, and I owe you nothing. Nothing.”

“Run”, she begged, her voice the only one among the chorus of visions who held no traces of hostility, reproach or recrimination. Despite what he had done. “Your time is almost over. Leave this place and never look back! It is the only chance you have left, and soon it will have passed away from your grasp.”

Pharazôn did not know what made him feel so angry, so defensive in her presence.

“Save your tears for your precious friend, and your pity for the son you abandoned and the husband you betrayed. I have no more to say to you.”

The ghost vanished after this, and all the others with it. Alone at last, though shaken, Pharazôn forced himself to close his eyes until he fell into an agitated sleep.

At some point, he did not know if minutes or hours later, somebody’s insistent voice brought him back to the waking world. Opening his eyes, he saw the same young aide who had spoken to him yesterday, leaning over his bedside. This time, however, he was no longer feigning nonchalance in front of the King: his face was pale, and he looked terrified.

“What is it?” Pharazôn mumbled, belatedly growing aware that everything was still dark around them, and that there was a lamp burning on the nightstand. “It is not day yet.”

“No.” The man’s voice came out shrill, as if he was close to a fit of hysteria. “It is not. It- it will not come.”

“What do you mean, it will not come?” the King inquired, struggling into an upwards position. His limbs ached as if he had battled a horde of Orcs singlehandedly the previous night. “What will not come?”

“The day”, was the shocking answer. “The sun. The light. It-it will not come. And outside… oh, my lord King, you have to see it!”

Still dazed, and half-naked, Ar Pharazôn followed him towards the balcony. This one did not open towards the Sea, but towards the mountain of the Baalim, and as soon as they set foot on it, he saw the clouds around it gleaming red like the heart of a fire. This glow fell over them, over the gardens and the tents and the buildings, lending an eerie, nightmarish look to anything it touched, but the sky itself remained dark.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“It sh-should be t-two hours before n-noon”, the young man stammered. Pharazôn’s eyes widened.

“What?” He received no answer, and he forced his mind to work fast. “I see. They must be preparing their attack. Let us leave this place immediately.” Run, she had said, but he would not run. He would not be frightened like a deer only to be hunted down in his flight. “And then, we will launch ours. Send the order to my war council, and to all the battalion commanders.”

“But…”

“Do as I say, or you will not live enough to be killed by the Baalim”, Pharazôn hissed. At last, this seemed to have some salutary effect on his companion’s panic, and he bowed before rushing away.

Panic, however, had already spread through the ranks, and mere threats were no longer enough to quench it. Despite his conviction that they had to move fast, Pharazôn delayed their departure enough to offer a massive prayer to the Great Deliverer, vowing to consecrate him many prisoners if their endeavours were crowned by success. As the prayers reverberated in the nightmarish darkness of the open square, ten grim-faced volunteers stepped in, offering to sacrifice their lives for the victory of their comrades. Feeling his heart warm a little in his chest, the King did them the honour of officiating the sacrifice himself, and swore to bestow riches and titles upon all their families. The sight of their bravery, and the knowledge of the great power of willing sacrifice, gave courage to the other soldiers, who declared themselves ready to march after that.

As they left the city, with torches kindled in the Sacred Fire to shine a light upon their march, they came upon a road, hewn in the rock of the mountain. It was not particularly narrow, or steep, and yet it forced them to abandon their formation and slow down their pace. It would also be easy to be ambushed there, Pharazôn thought darkly, and yet there was no other path to take if they wanted to reach their destination.

He walked at the head of the column, his courage acting as an inspiration for those who followed him. After the path took the first turns, he could no longer see the rearguard, so he had to advance blindly. Still, for the first two or three miles, no news reached him of anything going amiss, and he assumed that every battalion who had been encamped in the Elven city were now following behind. Again, he forced himself to look down, this time to avoid setting his gaze on the unsettling sight of the red clouds. Any hopes he might have harboured that the sacrifice would dispel the unnatural darkness, however, were dwindling swiftly.

“Watch out!” someone cried. It took him a moment to realize that the ground was shaking under their feet. As he instinctively sought the man closest to him for support, his ears caught the sound of a growing rumble, which seemed to come from the very roots of the mountain. A crack opened beneath his feet, and only his reflexes saved him from being at the wrong side of it when the rocks crumbled down the abyss. He heard shouts of terror, coming from many directions, and, too late, he realized the trap he had walked into. The body he was holding on to became a dead weight: a boulder had crushed his head just a moment ago. Belatedly, he recognized the young man who had woken him up in a panic that very morning.

Dead, for your delusions, Barekbal’s voice whispered in his ear. Pharazôn shook his head, but he no longer could swallow the knot in his throat.

The ground rumbled again, and this time he was not fast enough to avoid the abyss opening under his feet. Covering his head with his hands in a vain attempt to protect himself from the mountain falling upon his head, his mouth open in a wordless scream, Ar Pharazôn fell.