Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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The Dead

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Autumn was ebbing away, and a grey mantle veiled the skies of Armenelos, allowing but a fraction of the sunlight to trickle across; a dull radiance which bathed people’s faces in a phantasmagorical glow. Walking under this light, one could almost understand why their ancestors had believed they could see the dead walk among them at this time of the year, and started celebrating festivities in their honour, back when Númenor was a much younger and simpler place. Now, of course, ghosts had been confined to legends and stories for children, and every adult, educated Númenórean knew that souls did not roam the land after they had abandoned their bodies, but followed the Great God to receive life eternal -or everlasting darkness.

Still, Pharazôn thought, this knowledge did not prevent them from making offerings of wine, milk, or blood to the earth that contained their bodies, as if those could feel thirst or hunger, or needed reinvigoration. It also didn’t prevent the royal family of Númenor from trusting their dead to the care of the embalmers, who gave them the appearance of living people, and hid them in caves where they would remain like the most precious heirlooms of their house. Once a year, during this festival, he was allowed back in the Island, and he and his father would travel the dark paths together, guided by the Guardian of the Mountain, to visit the shell that the Princess Melkyelid had once inhabited. They offered her food and drink and spoke to her, but she did not partake of it, nor talked back to them. The woman who always had an answer for everything lay silent in her robes of red and golden splendour, calmly fixing them with a vacant glance where no spark of recognition had lurked for a long time. This unnerved Pharazôn, more than anything in this world. If he could have his way, he would have burned her, like the barbarians in Harad did to their dead, scattering their ashes to the wind not only to free them from the tyranny of the living, but also, perhaps more importantly, to be freed from them. Their lives were too short to waste by clinging to ghosts, as Merimne had put it once with her usual, brutal honesty.

Gimilkhâd, however, felt very differently. He had never gone back to the man he had been before her death, but seeing her every year seemed to give him some semblance of renewed life. For this feast, he always dressed as vainly as he did in the past, and as they came out of the Meneltarma he discussed politics with a heated voice, and if he sometimes mentioned her opinion, as if she had recently spoken to him, Pharazôn had grown used to nod along.

“…and now we are the only members of the royal house who attend the temple ceremony. Isn’t that shameful? Last Spring, in the festival of the King, when the High Priest mentioned our current King in his speech, you could see the discontent in everyone’s eyes. How could you celebrate the Eternal King, without the earthly King being present? First the crisis and the hunger, then the war, now the weather and the rumours of Elves being seen in the Island… they say that we are falling under a curse because of the King’s impiety. There are even whispers “His voice carefully lowered, he leaned closer to his son, “that his line is barren as a result of this curse.”

Pharazôn swallowed, trying to school his features into a neutral expression. He was aware of the Princess of the West’s lack of issue, and curses on the King had nothing to do with it. He could not say he was sorry for either Tar Palantir or Vorondil, though something in all this business still bothered him. Year after year, he and the Princess had met in a variety of places and situations, where they had fiercely rekindled their past relationship. One especially memorable night, he remembered, two years ago, they had met in a brothel, where she had pretended to be a prostitute.

Months later, there had been rumours of a child who died in her womb before it came to term. He had asked her about it, but she insisted that it had been no more than malicious gossip, spread by the faction who wished to undermine her father. And he had believed her, so there was no reason to ask whether this hypothetical child who had never existed had been his or Vorondil’s.

Xara and Noxaris had been cousins, he remembered. Xaron and Valentia had been siblings, by all’s sake, and so had been their parents, and they had all grown to adulthood. Long ago, he remembered, his mother had used their grandsire as an example of why cousin marriage between Men should not be considered incestuous. But no matter who the spouses were, cousins or siblings, at least it had been marriage. What he and Zimraphel did was adultery, one of the greatest sins against the Goddess, and one that he was not even sure his mother, with all her prophecies, could safely have condoned. If there was a curse, perhaps it was their curse, the one they had freely invoked upon themselves.

If there was a curse, he remembered, forcing these morbid thoughts away from his mind. But there had been no child, so all those thoughts were but idle speculations.

As if from a distance, he heard his name being called by people who passed them in their way to the Temple, greeting him, welcoming him to the Island, congratulating him on his campaigns. He stood next to his father, smiling and waving to strangers, and greeting acquaintances by their names and titles. If Tar Palantir was cursed in these people’s eyes, he thought, he had to appear blessed by contrast. He had the youth, the looks, the strength and the fortune, and above all this, the piety which brought him to this temple to kneel before the altar of Melkor and listen in reverence to the High Priest’s words.

He would be whatever they needed him to be, and for this he would have to keep his secrets to himself.

“Let us go inside, Father”, he said, holding Gimilkhâd’s arm.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

High Priest Yehimelkor, however, did not look like a man from whom secrets could be easily withheld. In his thin features, almost emaciated from prolonged periods of fasting, his grey eyes gleamed with an intense light that could make any sinner look away as if in the presence of lightning. High in his altar, speaking to an audience of princes, nobles and peasants who stood in this crowded and suffocating space following his every word in rapt attention, he could have been mistaken for an incarnation of the God himself. It did not matter that he had never touched a sword, or that he had forbidden Amandil from doing so because war and violence were frowned upon by the gods: if he had appeared in front of the soldiers of Umbar as he was now, they would have believed themselves in the presence of an emissary of the Lord of Battles.

How ironic, Pharazôn thought, that it was Tar Palantir himself who had allowed Yehimelkor to become what he was now for all these people. As his father had put it, the King on Earth was the incarnation of the King in Heaven, but his uncle had abdicated this role, believing it to be a blasphemous conceit. Bereaved of an object for their worship, the masses had turned to this priest, whose royal blood ran stronger and truer as years passed by, and whose uncompromising opposition to both Ar Gimilzôr and Tar Palantir was now legendary.

“The King of Heaven, the One King, suffered and died so our souls would not wander aimlessly through the surface of this Earth, or fall in the Everlasting Darkness. In all his power and might, he gave his own life away, so he could guide us to life eternal. This is why, today, we commemorate our dead in the joyous knowledge that they are not lost, that they are not in pain, trying to find their way back to their bodies as the first men used to do, often attacking the living in their confusion. We commemorate our dead in happiness, and in so doing, we honour His sacrifice and renew our alliance with him by imitating His action.” He paused for a moment, his brow creasing with a frown as he pointed at the flaming altar. “For this is the original meaning of this sacrifice, of all the sacrifices performed here and the sacrifices that you perform yourselves, in your homes and hearths. It is a pale reflection of the original sacrifice, the Lord’s sacrifice. When we perform it, we give Him back something of what He gave to us. It is impossible, of course, to ever repay Him in kind, because we are not of the same kind as He is: we are but crawling ants in the ground at his feet, unable to even comprehend His might. And still, what is in our power to do, we must do. If you own cattle, you must give Him your cattle; if you are poor and only have some coins, you must give Him a turtle dove or a rabbit or some small animal you can afford. For this is the pledge of our devotion, that we will freely give what we have. But beware of believing that this is enough, that you can please the god by sacrificing to Him with impure thoughts in your minds, and a black heart hidden in your chests! For any sacrifice is worthless unless you open your minds and hearts to Him.”

It was significant that he would dedicate his speech to sacrifices, Pharazôn thought. As everybody in Armenelos knew, and he had read in his father’s letters, the King was against this custom. He had not merely refused to attend any sacrifices for most of his reign; he had even attempted to curb the practice in various ways, the most unpopular of all being the drastic cut in revenues that he had tried to blame on the mainland crisis. According to him, no god could look favourably upon a human superstition, blindly perpetuated by those who were ignorant of their will. Of course, in Tar Palantir’s real thoughts, neither of the gods the Númenóreans prayed to were gods at all, but creatures of darkness; the only god was Eru, who could not enter the Circles of the World or rejoice in the fumes of the altars. Still, he had preferred to coat his own beliefs in a thick layer of philosophical disdain, prompting the need for a reply in similar terms. The erudite High Priest, as usual, was ready to rise to the occasion.

“…and if you ever feel tempted to believe that you do not owe anything to the Great God, if you hear the insidious whisper of your intellectual pride claiming that you know better, that you can choose your manner and object of worship, that you can invent your own gods and outlandish customs by searching old scrolls which were written in times of darkness and ignorance, remember your dead! Remember them, and who delivered them, and who will deliver you when the time comes for your own souls to part with your bodies and look for guidance!”

Now, that message had been clear enough. And loud. Fascinated, Pharazôn stared at the man who loomed above him, looking for signs of fear or uncertainty after the words he had just spoken, but finding none. He should have expected it, for that priest had defied the late King to save Amandil’s life, back when he hadn’t even been High Priest. From what he had gathered from conversations with his friend, Yehimelkor had not seemed interested in the power struggle: he had only done it because to him, it was the right thing to do. Of course, Pharazôn knew now that everything, even doing the right thing, was part of a power struggle, but that didn’t invalidate the man’s courage.

He would not wish to have Yehimelkor as his enemy.

“He is a brave man, isn’t he?” his father remarked, taking advantage of the commotion which began as the priests dragged the victims towards the altar. “I remember he had the gall to oppose me when that accursed Faithful friend of yours hurt you in the temple grounds.”

“We were just playing.” How could he have forgotten that incident? That was another defiance, then, to add to his list, though Gimilkhâd was not nearly as intimidating as Ar Gimilzôr had been.

The Prince of the South laughed, as if remembering a funny anecdote.

“He was so protective of that ungrateful little bastard! A pity that his dear charge showed his thanks by dishonouring him as soon as he had the opportunity… and now, of course, he has become one of them, as I always knew he would. In this I was right, and not your mother.”

A young calf brayed piteously, wrestled into an immobile position between four priests. Pharazôn watched it absently, and as the blood trickled in spurts, he was reminded of those tribes Amandil had fought once, the ones who sacrificed men to their god. Several Númenórean soldiers had fallen prisoner to them, and after he came back, Amandil had not been able to sleep for weeks, for the incident triggered a series of nightmares where he was the one knifed and burned in the fire of the altar of Armenelos. Apparently, that was what Ar Gimilzôr had planned for him; a mockery of a sacrifice, but not a true sacrifice, as Yehimelkor had no doubt informed the Former King back then. For Amandil had never meant anything to him at all: he was just an enemy, a threat to be silenced and made to disappear, like the Númenóreans had been to those savages. He had not been his to give.

“Let us depart.”

Pharazôn nodded. The scent of smoke and incense was filling his nostrils with such an intensity that it had become impossible to ignore, and he knew well enough the effect that this had on his father. He had never liked the smell, but since the death of the Princess he could not even stand it, and fled it like others fled the sight of blood. Lowering his head in a deep bow at the altar, and muttering a final prayer, Pharazôn stood up, and followed him.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The streets of Armenelos were already bustling with the preparations for the feast. People dangled precariously from stairs to hang garlands from the walls, lamps were set on every balcony, and boys and girls ran here and there piling wood for the bonfires, shouting and yelling in excitement. Pharazôn, who had taken leave from his father at the gateway of the temple, unwrapped an old cloak that he always took with him in his visits to the Island, draped it over his head and shoulders until it obscured his face, and plunged in the middle of the crowd. As usual, nobody recognized him, but he was treated with wary politeness all the same, as everybody took him for a soldier, and was careful not to bump into him. He could hide his face all he wanted, but he could never hide his true identity.

First, he approached the cart of a street vendor, and bought a small turtle dove that flapped its wings inside a cage. With it in his hand, he crossed the empty villa behind the temple, the one where Amandil and he had first met, and where they had still held many of their encounters years afterwards. Back then, it had been vacant but well kept, as the royal family stayed there whenever there was a religious festival; now, it was abandoned and so derelict that the gardens could have been mistaken for a forest of the Middle Havens. As far as he knew, the only people who had set foot there since the first years of the reign of Tar Palantir had been Zimraphel and himself, and that had been only twice, as it was not wise to rely on a single location for their encounters.

As he reached the end of the villa’s large extension, he crossed a small stone portico and stepped into a quiet graveyard, full of mounds of earth and stone. Many of them bore traces of having been visited recently by their kin: flowers which lay beautifully arranged, and fresh stains of various liquids that had been spilled over them. The bulk of the visitors, however, had left already, and he only saw a single man, walking away at a distance. Feeling that he could risk it, Pharazôn took off the cloak, and began his search across the graves.

It was one of the new ones, as it had only been there for ten months, so it was not difficult to find. Breathing deeply, he stopped in front of it, taken by vivid remembrances of the day when, half a world from here, she had knelt before him and begged to be taken to Númenor with her son.

I will follow you to the end of the world, if that is the only sure way to see my son again in this life.

Pharazôn had considered this a very melodramatic request, back then, and he had tried to convince her that her son would only stay in Númenor until his majority. It was only seven years, eight at the most, and it was unlikely that anything would happen to any of them in that short span of time. But she had insisted, claiming that, as one of the Sea People, he could not understand the frailty of life. And perhaps she had been right, because, in the end, she had died in Númenor only a few years later, before her son reached adulthood and returned to Arne.

Could barbarians be possessed of some manner of foresight, too? Or had it been her coming to Númenor what sealed her fate, when she was not meant to die at all? The illness she had caught could have been a Númenórean fever that she was not strong enough to withstand, or the weather of the Island might have disagreed with her constitution. At least she had seen her son, and her son had seen her, which was already more than Pharazôn could claim for himself.

“Princess Xara of Arne, I summon you”, he muttered, opening the cage to grab the turtle dove by the wing. With his other hand, he extricated his dagger from its sheath, and cleanly cut its head off. Then, carefully, he directed the spurt of blood towards the earth in her mound, right under the gravestone, and watched as it trickled away and disappeared, as if drunk by a thirsty spirit.

A thirsty spirit who was not there, according to the High Priest of Melkor. But who could say that he knew for sure where barbarians went after they died? He had conquered and occupied the kingdom of Arne, but in all the time he spent there, he did not remember ever asking which gods they worshipped or the rites that they followed. And in any case, he thought, a tradition was a tradition, a familiar routine to fall back on when the truth of things became too difficult to comprehend.

“What are you doing?” a voice interrupted his thoughts abruptly. Surprised, he looked over his shoulder, and his eyes met the challenging frown of a young man.

“It is none of your business”, he replied, somewhat taken aback by the stranger’s insolence. Interrupting a prayer was rude enough, let alone the prayer of someone who was neither kin nor acquaintance.

But the young man did not back down.

“It is” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “This is my mother’s grave.”

Oh. They did grow fast. Gazing at him with renewed curiosity, Pharazôn could identify some of Noxaris’s features in him: the nose, certainly, and perhaps also the sharp chin. Or perhaps it was just the arrogance. His eyes, however, belonged to his mother, and belatedly he wondered how he could remember her so well from years ago.

“I came here to visit her grave”, he explained, needlessly, as he still held the limp corpse of the dove in his left fist, and the dagger in his right. The young man’s eyes widened, and his features were creased in an expression of loathing.

“You! How dare you! You are the enemy of my family!”

Ungrateful brat, Pharazôn thought. Just like his father, but raised by Lord Hiram of Sorontil, which had probably made things even worse.

“I would advise you to lower your voice while you stand in the capital of Númenor and claim to hold a grudge against a member of its royal family” he replied coolly. “Or did your foster father neglect to mention that?”

“Leave her alone. You are desecrating her grave.”

“I am not desecrating her grave, I am offering a sacrifice in her honour.”

“That is an evil superstition fostered by the Enemy, to lower man to the rank of beast and lead us astray from the teachings of the Valar.”

“Lord Hiram has taught you well, but those are his beliefs, which most people do not share” Surely your mother did not believe in that shit, either, he thought, but he did not say it aloud. He was not here to be drawn into a theological argument with a boy.

“The King does.”

Pharazôn shook his head. He had grown a healthy amount of respect for Princess Xara, very much in spite of her family, her husband, and her sons. Though all his instincts called for him to punch the brat and go on with his day’s business, he probably owed her at least this.

“Listen. I will leave in a moment, but before that, I have some advice for you.”

The young man scowled.

“I do not want or need your advice.”

Pharazôn ignored him.

“As soon as you set foot in Arne, the first thing you should do is marry your cousin. Even if she is just a whiny child to you, even if you think that the day will never come when you can consummate your marriage, do it. And tell her mother, the former Queen Valentia, that since you have lost your mother to an untimely death, you wish her to be like a mother to you.”

For the first time, the undivided strength of the heir of Arne’s contempt seemed weakened by a flicker of shock. However, it did not take long for it to be back in full force.

“Cousin marriage is incest, and incest is sinful! It is against the teachings of the Valar!”

Forget about the Valar, you fool.  “Your parents married each other. Your grandparents, too.”

“That was because they did not know better.”

Right.

“That was because they were not Númenóreans, they were Arnians, and they thought like Arnians. If you wish to rule Arne and survive the attempt, you need to stop thinking like a Númenórean, and start thinking like an Arnian.” He stood up, sheathed his dagger and carefully unfolded his cloak with care not to stain it with the last droplets of blood oozing from the dead bird. “That is all.”

The footsteps followed him almost until the end of the row of mounds before he heard the young man’s voice again.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Was it his imagination, or was there a touch less of hostility in his voice? Maybe it was because he was not looking at him in the face now; giving him his back had definitely been an improvement.

“Because I believe that your mother would have wanted to tell you herself, if she had been alive”, he said, heading for the stone portico to return to the temple villa. “And because I am the one who will be sent to invade Arne again if you do not manage to keep the peace on your own.”

The Prince Phaleris did not follow him further.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

There was one more visit to make, one that Pharazôn could not forget to include in his schedule if he did not want Hell, in the shape of a very angry Lord of Andúnië, to break loose. He had learned his lesson well that other time, and since then he had not dared to try Amandil’s patience again.

He waited until night had almost fallen over the capital before leaving the Palace with his faithful cloak, a heavy bundle in his arms, and no escort. As always, he hesitated a little before the gates of the Andúnië mansion, wondering if it was better to knock on them with or without his disguise on. Once, a new guard had been standing watch, and he had refused to let him in until he identified himself, causing a ruckus which should have been heard by the entire neighbourhood. Since then, however, Amandil had made sure that some discreet veteran was expecting him on the day that he was scheduled to arrive.

This time, the veteran was there, so he was ushered in fast enough - but Amandil was not.

“I am very sorry, but the Lord was summoned to the Court this afternoon, and I do not know…”

“I do not believe he will be there for very long. Armenelos is celebrating, but the Court is not, so this will merely be a routine family audience”, a familiar voice spoke from the shadows of the corridor. In spite of himself, Pharazôn’s felt his heart leap.

“Elendil! I am so glad to see you!” he cried, rushing forwards to embrace Amandil’s son, who first stiffened in surprise, then responded awkwardly, bending his knees and his back as if trying to make himself small enough to avoid towering over him. Which was, of course, an impossible endeavour if there ever was one. “You have my permission to be taller than me. I do not normally allow it, but I will make an exception.”

The Elendil of years ago would probably have taken this seriously, but the Lady Eluzîni of Hyarnustar seemed to have gone to great lengths to school him in the ways of humour. He smiled.

“I am glad to see you, too, my lord prince. I will show you in, to a place where you can comfortably wait for Father to return.”

“Oh, forget Amandil, I will have time for him later. You can show me in, but you have to stay with me, because I want to talk to you, too.”

If Elendil was surprised at this, he hid it well. His courtesy was unshakeable, very different from the hostility he had radiated back when Pharazôn had visited him in disguise to give him news of his father in Middle-Earth. But back then, he had been the instructor of a rundown school, opened in defiance of the Palace Guards who would not admit him in his ranks, and Pharazôn had been an unknown entity. Though not unknown for long, he thought, remembering how the young man had discovered his identity during their conversation. Since then, he had managed to discover many other things as well, such as the fact that all the money and the providers supposedly sent by his father’s family could be traced back to Pharazôn. He had even succeeded in discovering some of his spies, which was remarkable.

Since he became the scion of a noble house and one of the leaders of the so-called Faithful, however, Pharazôn had barely met him, except in a few, sparsely counted ceremonial occasions. There had been that embarrassing affair, when Tar Palantir decided that Elendil had to become his son-in-law, but Zimraphel had shaken him off, something for which Pharazôn knew that he should be eternally grateful, though he had never told her as much in words. Asides from that, most of what he knew about him came from Amandil’s lips, including the very entertaining story of his courtship and betrothal to the daughter of none other than the Lord of Feasting himself. This lady had wisely been adopted by her uncle, but, as far as Pharazôn had been able to hear, she remained her father’s daughter through and through. He could not imagine a stranger pair than those two, and yet Amandil’s wife apparently held the unshakeable belief that they were the luckiest pair under Heaven.

“I wanted to congratulate you for your incoming marriage to the Lady Eluzîni of Hyarnustar”, he said, as they sat on what he vaguely recognized as Amandil’s study. Elendil blushed a little.

“Thanks. It means much to me.”

“I have known you since you were a child, and I still cannot make sense of it. How did you manage to court a lady like her? You used to take the longest turn back home merely to avoid bumping into the girls of your neighbourhood!”

The younger man was keeping his eyes firmly set on the cup he was serving for his guest. Pharazôn expected him to blush again, probably a deeper hue of red this time, but to his surprise, he spoke instead.

“Since you stopped sending spies, you have missed some interesting developments, my lord prince.”

He had to snort at this.

“Such as the moment when you learned the fine art of courting? Who taught it to you, I wonder? I hope it was not your father, he was always hopeless.”

“The Lady Eluzîni.”

“What?” For a moment, Pharazôn did not understand, believing Elendil’s words to be a non-sequitur.

“The Lady Eluzîni taught me the fine art of courting. But now that I have finally learned it, I find I have no need for it anymore.”

Pharazôn laughed.

“She courted you? Now it makes more sense!”

“Perhaps.” Elendil grew solemn now. Curious, Pharazôn gazed at him, wondering if he had finally succeeded in offending him. His expression, however, was not that of someone who had taken offense, but rather the copy of a look he had seen many times in Amandil’s eyes, whenever he was pondering how best to breach an important subject to his annoying friend who did not seem to be able to take anything seriously.

“What is it?” he asked.

“What?” Elendil was slightly put out. “What is what, my lord prince?”

“What you wanted to tell me just now.”

“Oh.” Amandil would have denied it, just because it hurt his stupid pride that Pharazôn could read him. No, perhaps they were not so similar, after all. “I wanted to ask you to attend my wedding, as a guest.”

“Me?” Pharazôn tried to laugh it off, but the mood had deserted him. He shook his head. Similar or not similar, they were both insane. “I would be most unwelcome at that gathering. Last I heard, a wedding was an occasion to celebrate among friends and family.”

“I would not presume to consider you a friend merely because you are my father’s friend” Elendil said, that solemn expression back in his features with a vengeance. “But I am well aware that, if it had not been for you, my mother and me would not be here now.”

Damn. Not even Amandil was so direct, most of the times. This was almost at Merimne’s level of uncomfortable honesty.

“That was an oath I swore. I was merely fulfilling it.”

“But you swore it freely.”

“Yes”. Pharazôn had a sudden idea. “And I believe it is time to invoke it again. I will not attend your wedding, in order to protect you from yourself and your misplaced sense of honour. If either the King, Prince Vorondil, Lord Shemer or Lord Zakarbal see me there, the repercussions will not be pleasant. Besides, I need to go back to Middle-Earth soon. I am only tolerated here once a year because my mother is lying in a cave under the Meneltarma, but I shouldn’t overstay my welcome. And yes, I know that you will tell me I could use the wedding as a pretext to stay here for a longer period of time, but then we will be back to where we started. The blame will fall on you, and your reputation among your allies will suffer, not to mention your father’s.”

“I see.” There was no anger in Elendil’s look, nor the determination to insist further. Pharazôn could only detect a tiny flicker of disappointment, but the younger man visibly forced himself to banish it and school his features back into a pleasant look. That was another feature to be added to the list of differences between him and his father: apparently, the son could take a ‘no’ for an answer. The mark of civilization, he thought wryly. “I understand your reasons, though I swear to you that I would not have minded in the slightest.”

“And I thank you for it. In fact, I was planning to give you a wedding gift anyway.” Turning his attention towards the bundle he had been carrying from the Palace, Pharazôn started to unwrap it. Elendil’s eyes widened.

“That was not necessary!”, he protested. But as Pharazôn finished unwrapping the sword, he could not help leaning forwards to gaze at it curiously.

“This sword was kept in the King of Arne’s stores, but it must be Númenórean in origin. As a matter of fact, no Arnian would be able to use it, and I doubt many Númenóreans can. But I believe you do have both the strength and the reach needed to wield it.” He pushed the gleaming blade towards Elendil, who took it in his hands, observing its every detail with a reverential look. “I am aware that you are more accustomed to practice swords than real ones, and that marriage and children will remove you even further from such pursuits. But I have seen you, Elendil son of Amandil, and I know that you have the heart of a warrior. And I will not abandon the hope of having you by my side in Middle Earth one day.”

The younger man stood up, holding the sword, and began moving it around; first tentatively, as he became accustomed to its weight and reach, and then, gradually, in faster and looser thrusts. Pharazôn nodded in enthusiasm.

“I knew it would fit! I had a bet with two of my men.”

“I do not know what to say. This is priceless.” Elendil shook his head, cutting Pharazôn before he could speak. “But I cannot do what you wish me to do. My place is here.”

The son of the Prince of the South shrugged, undeterred.

“For now, maybe. But who knows about the future?”

“I mean it.” Elendil frowned. “My father told me what you and he went through in the past. I did not learn swordsmanship in order to kill fellow Men in distant lands.”

“Oh, Men are only a part of it. You have heard of Mordor, haven’t you?”

“According to the King, that evil is beyond our power to conquer.”

“The King can speak for himself. I defeated the armies of Mordor once, and I do not plan to stop until one day, I can vanquish Sauron entirely. And if you stand at my side when this happens, your name will be more famous than the heroes in those scrolls that your Faithful hold in such great veneration.”

Elendil carefully laid the sword back in its wrapping. He seemed to be contemplating this pronouncement in silence, probably wondering how to express his disbelief in a polite way. Just when Pharazôn was about to give up on trying to coax a reaction from him, however, he spoke.

“I was present at that Council session, six years ago. I remember that you defeated a powerful creature… a Ringwraith, as the Elves of Lindon call it. They say you were lucky to sever the enchantments that allowed him to keep a body in our plane of existence. They also say that there are eight more of those, and of course there is Sauron himself.”

“They also claimed that there were ways to defeat them, like fire and special blades.” Amandil had been the one to tell him that, years ago: his blade had been one of those, though he had not known it at the time. “I could have used the knowledge back then, and I will certainly use it in the future.”

“Would you become an ally of the Elves, then? You?”

“I do not trust them any more than I do the Orcs, but if they wish to destroy each other, I would not mind as long as my interests were served. That is another of the many things you would learn in the mainland: if you have to ally yourself with men who eat the flesh of their fallen enemies, you do so, and you look away when they feed.” Pharazôn drained his cup with a long swallow, watching Elendil’s expression, and promptly shook his head with a rueful grin. “Why, I do not seem to be doing a very good job of convincing you of visiting Middle-Earth. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned the last detail. That was only one tribe of many I have met, if that is any comfort to you.” Though others sacrificed people to their gods, and then there were those who mated with Orcs…

The younger man sat down in front of him, the shadow of an answering smile dancing in his eyes.

“Well, I cannot pretend I am eager to meet people who are able to do those things, but the lesson seems an interesting one. Do not lose hope, my lord prince. If I ever set foot in Middle-Earth, I swear it will be with you, and that I will wield this sword.”

Pharazôn laughed.

“Your father should have warned you that I never lose hope. For those of us who do not possess foresight, this is our greatest privilege, and our most terrible weapon.”

Elendil frowned at this, as if pondering something. After a moment, to Pharazôn’s bemusement, he nodded.

“Indeed. That was quite an insightful observation.”

“And he should have told you that I can be insightful when I drink wine, too. The more wine I drink, the more insightful I become.”

“I think Eluzîni would like you.”

“Not if I succeed in dragging you to the mainland, she will not.”

“Then you would have to fight her, I am afraid.”

Pharazôn smiled.

“She, and your father both. I still prefer those odds to having to fight you.”

But somehow, as he leaned back and saw the younger man turn an inscrutable gaze back in the direction of the sword, his instinct, the one that he had learned to keep apart from the natural flow of his wishes and affections, told him that one day this particular battle would inevitably be won.