Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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The Truth

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Year 3219 of the Second Age - year 42 of the reign of Tar Palantir

 

The Spring sky was a glorious hue of blue, untainted by the usual flocks of clouds that the East wind blew from a mysterious land. In the gardens surrounding the Andúnië mansion, mocked as a “barbarian orchard” by the Númenóreans who had grown accustomed to hide their spaces of leisure behind triple walls, the warm rays of the Sun seemed to have awoken life with their vivifying touch. The trill of the birds, the buzz of insects, the voices of men and women rung in his ears, louder, it seemed to him, than ever in a place which, since his first arrival many years ago, he had unconsciously categorized as a land of forbidding quiet. And above all those sounds, the most precious, the rarest of them all, so much that, if he closed his eyes, he could almost believe that he had imagined it: the laughter of children.

Amandil blinked, wondering why it still seemed so unreal to him. This was supposed to be his home, his ancestral home, even if he had not raised any children here. Or been raised himself, he remembered, his mind wandering briefly towards the haunting temple, the secret house in Armenelos that he had barely been allowed to enter, the long exile to a distant world. By the time he was allowed to return to the land of his fathers, it had already seemed too late. He had thought it would never be anything to him but the empty shell of an ideal life, his kinsmen but strangers, his people but exiles, still living under the shadow of their long imprisonment. And his wife, of course, the greatest stranger of them all.

But it was a wondrous thing, how a few years of peace could change everything. A tenuous peace, to be sure, and certainly not for everyone in either the Island or the colonies, but to his family and his people, it had been the first period without persecution that they had known in three hundred years. Little by little, as if they were wild animals used to bolt at the sight of hunters, they seemed to have regrown their confidence, settling back in their lands, and daring to believe, for the first time, that it was truly their home. The barren wastelands had slowly become fields, fishermen’s boats had become a fleet, ruins had grown back into houses, and a poor village into a prosperous town. The empty mansion, a home for ghosts where the King’s mother, the Princess Inzilbêth, had once curled against her mother’s tombstone to sleep at night, was now full of people, and the first children in a hundred and fifty years were being born into the house of Andúnië.

“Artanis and I were the last children to play here”, Númendil said, as if – no, not as if, he corrected himself, for he had certainly read his thoughts. Amandil had always heard that his father was considered “Elvish”, but since he had begun living among the real Elves, this previous appreciation had been revealed as a gross understatement. “We also used to go down to the mallorn forest, but our games were more sedate, I believe.”

“I am ready to take your word for it, Father”, Amandil nodded, a smile dancing in his lips. He could imagine his father and his aunt Artanis at ten, lying on the ground counting stars, engaging in some Elvish riddle game or just talking to each other in very quiet voices. The comparison with his grandson and his friend, whose ear-splitting screams could be perfectly heard from almost half a mile away was almost funny.

“Do you think any of them could be hurt?” At the far end of the porch, Amalket had interrupted the conversation she was having with the Lady Lalwendë, and she was sending somewhat worried looks in the direction of the trees. Her daughter-in-law shook her head, laughing.

“I will only be worried the moment I cannot hear them”, she said. As she spoke, there was a rustle of twigs, and the two boys emerged in plain sight, racing each other to only the Valar knew where. Their shouts became louder and louder as they drew closer.

“Boys!” Amalket stood up, a formidable frown upon her brow. “Keep your voices down or go away, you are disturbing your mother!”

“Sorry, Grandmother! “Isildur stopped in his tracks; his face flushed from the effort. “I told Malik we should run the other way, but he is afraid he will fall into the Sea!”

“That is not true!” Malik protested. Though Amandil was quite familiar with him by now, he couldn’t help but be amazed every time at how much he looked like Ashad, back when he was a young boy in Middle Earth. “I never said I was afraid!”

“But you are!”

“I am not!”

“Listen, boys, Isildur’s mother is in a delicate condition…”

“Do not worry, Lady Moriwendë.” Malik let go of his quarrel to look appraisingly at Lalwendë’s enormous belly, and smiled in what he probably imagined was a reassuring way. “My mother had seven, and she was fine afterwards.”

Amalket sized him with a shocked stare, as if he had robbed her of words she had been planning to say. Amandil felt lucky to be at a certain distance from her right now, for he had difficulties to hide his laughter.

Lalwendë patted the mound that had been growing over her stomach for the last eight months.

“Oh, yes, I have no doubt of that. But think about this: the baby can hear you from here, but it cannot see you. So, what if it thinks that you are a horde of Orcs coming to eat us all? It will never want to leave my belly! And I wish it would; I am very tired of having it inside me.”

“I have been thinking of something!” Isildur proclaimed, before his mother had even finished. “What if we exchange this baby for Malik, and he stays here all the time, and the baby goes to live with Malik’s mother?”

“What?” Amalket shook her head in incredulity, sitting down with an almost imperceptible wince. Her knees often pained her, Amandil could tell, though she did not want to talk about it. Joint ache, they had called it when they had detected it in her mother. “What kind of idea is that?”

“I am afraid that is not possible”, Elendil said, coming to sit next to her. For Isildur, of course, that was far from an adequate explanation.

“Why?”

“Because, when it is born, it will be about this size” Lalwendë drew the size of a newborn in the air with the palms of her hands. “Look at Malik’s size, now. How could Malik’s mother ever accept such an unfair deal?”

Her son frowned, pondering this, while Elendil and his mother looked at each other and shook their heads almost in unison.

“Well, at least we could convince her to let him stay longer, couldn’t we?” the boy insisted, changing tack. “I mean, she has six other children…”

“That we can try.” His mother smiled brightly. “If Malik is in agreement, of course.”

“Oh, I am!” The other boy was remarkably quick to answer. Amandil was reminded of those stolen mornings in the temple villa, playing with the only boy who could make him forget about the time, and the oppressive pull of the rules and interdictions that shaped his reality. This made him feel sympathy.

“I have known Ashad since he was a child. I believe he will not refuse” he intervened. “And he still owes me for stealing my horse and boarding my ship to come to Númenor.”

“Really?” Malik stared at him in amazement. “I do not know that story!”

“Then, I will tell you tonight.” That should give him enough time to find a way of editing it to his satisfaction. “Now, you should go and play, the sun is still high in the sky.”

“Yes, Grandfath… Hey, wait! That is not fair!” Isildur yelled as Malik burst into a run, taking the lead. “You are cheating again!”

“And keep your voices down!” Amalket shouted after them, though Amandil doubted that they had even heard her.

Elendil seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

“As Lalwendë said, as long as we can hear them, everything is fine. Though I must apologize to Grandfather, whose ears must not be accustomed to this ill treatment.”

“Do Elves have children, Lord Númendil?” Lalwendë asked. Amandil’s father, who had been quietly listening to the entire conversation, shook his head, a little ruefully, or so it seemed to him.

“Not many. Being as they are, immortal, they are not limited by our life cycles. A married couple can bring a child to the world now, but they can also bring it after twenty generations of our direct descendants have grown old and died. So, when there is a time that they judge to be inappropriate for childbearing, they merely leave it for the future.”

“And is this time inappropriate for childbearing?” Lalwendë insisted, still curious. “Why?”

“For them, the time has been inappropriate for childbearing ever since they came to Middle-Earth as exiles. Now and then, a child is born, but it is a much rarer occurrence than it is among Men.”

“But that should be… since…” The Lady of Andúnië ‘s voice trailed away, as if she was counting in silence but could not make sense of the figures. “I cannot understand. In the First Age, if the stories are true, they really were in danger most of the time, and it was an ugly world to bring a child into. But now? There is always a war here or there, but not enough as to…”

“There were no wars here or there where they came from.” Númendil reminded her. “Also, many of them left their wives and their husbands in Valinor, or they died in the wars. It will be long until they are reunited again.”

Those fifty years do not seem that long, by comparison. Amandil could almost hear the thought, whirling inside her mind, and he could also feel its violent rejection.

“Immortality and eternity are notions that we mortals are unable to contemplate” she argued, her voice becoming tinged with a touch of bitterness. “We are what we are, and we do what we do because, in the end, we know that we must die. You may live among the Elves, Lord Númendil, but for us, they are but the subject of tales.”

“I wonder how it would feel, being able to choose an age of the world to bring forth my children” Lalwendë intervened, a little too quickly. A perceptive woman, in spite of her reputation as an air-headed pleasure seeker, she had soon learned her way around the quiet feud in her new family. “To be forever fertile. What if I did keep bearing children all the time? I could be mother to an army!”

“An army of children like Isildur?” Elendil pretended to be horrified. This finally made Amalket smile.

“No, not all boys. I want girls, too. I am sure this one is a girl”. His daughter-in-law patted her belly again. “And she will be like me.”

Back when she married his son, Amandil thought, she would never have been so open with this statement. Having her father’s reputation, asides from her own, to contend with, she had been on the defensive for a time, determined to show them that she was the perfect wife for Elendil. He had to admit that he may have deserved this attitude at first, for he had not been very thrilled with the idea of the marriage, and even less with the King’s surprising haste in allowing it, prompted, as it seemed now more often than ever, by political considerations instead of anything related to his so-called moral restoration. But Elendil had found it appropriate, and he trusted Elendil, even in something as volatile as the matters of the heart. As for Amalket, she could not have cared less for who the lady was or who her parents were: as far as she was concerned, if Elendil loved her, there was nothing else to discuss. And if you dare disagree with that, you are even more of a filthy hypocrite than I believed, she finished the argument with an extra flourish.

That had been only at the beginning, however. After that, he did keep his mouth shut, and the strategy had worked surprisingly well, for everybody was happy with the arrangement. The King had his great Western alliance, and his show of public reconciliation between two of the three main noble houses who supported him. Amalket had her son’s happiness, Elendil had Lalwendë, and she had him -and very soon after that, both had Isildur. And then, she had grown back her confidence, and the more like herself she became, the more Amandil had started to like her, too.

“You will be very lucky if you get your wish with this child”, Amalket said. “Isildur is nothing at all like his father. To this day, I still do not know who he has taken after!”

“Now that you mention him.” Lalwendë looked up, suddenly concerned. “I haven’t heard him for a while now.”

Elendil stood up.

“Stay here” he said, but she was already on her feet, in spite of Amalket’s efforts to prevent it. Amandil was about to stand as well, as he had never been the kind to sit idly whenever something was afoot, but before they could go very far, a strange silhouette emerged from the trees.

It took even his own eyes, once experienced in the art of scrutinizing his surroundings for signs of the enemy, a little while until he could make sense of what he was seeing. The figure looked like a boy, but it was actually two, as one of them -Isildur- was leaning heavily against the other. His face was pale, and he advanced slowly, with a very pronounced limp.

“What on Earth has happened?” Lalwendë cried, both arms hugging her belly in a dramatic way. “Oh, quiet down, quiet down, please, please!”

“He… fell from the tree” Malik explained. His face, which looked as if it was perpetually tanned by the sun, was now a faint hue of red. Isildur shook his head.

“I did not fall. I jumped.”

“Because I jumped first and dared you.”

“Well, you did not push me!” In spite of his pain, he looked defiant. “And I would have done it if it wasn’t for that stupid branch!”

“It is only sprained.” Somehow Amandil had got there first, and immediately began to identify the injury with the calm expertise given him by years of experience in the mainland. His grandson winced when he manipulated the foot, but he did not cry. “Still, it will take some time to heal.”

“Do you mean to say that you threw yourself from a tree?” Lalwendë’s voice was unusually shrill as she caught the gist of the situation. “Why? What was the point in that? Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“I was not trying to kill myself; I was trying to get to the other tree!” Isildur explained, somehow still having the energy to feel indignant. “Malik can do it!”

“So, if Malik falls down a cliff, you would fall down a cliff to imitate him?” Amalket snorted.

“I would not… I didn’t…” Ashad’s son seemed suddenly overwhelmed by the situation. Letting go of Isildur, who was held by Amandil and Elendil now, he stepped backwards, his face redder than ever. “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry! I thought he would be able to do it, too!”

“We are all different, and so are our abilities, Malik.” Trust Elendil to keep his cool when everyone else lost it, Amandil thought. “I trust you will remember this from now on. And even more so you, Isildur. As Father says, this will take time to heal. This means that you will not be hanging on trees anytime soon, but resting in bed.”

“You are lucky you did not break it.” Amalket remarked, with all the severity she could muster. “As I was saying earlier, who does this boy take after? Halideyid was always such a good child!”

Lalwendë stood up and walked towards them, wincing very much like Isildur when his foot was touched.

“Oh, my child. Ouch, you, be still, this is none of your business! I love you. I love you very much, but you are going to be the death of me.” She embraced him as well as she was able; her grip looked so precarious that, for a moment, Amandil did not dare let go of his burden.

Isildur seemed embarrassed, if because guilt was finally sinking in or because of his mother’s public display of affection, he could not know for sure.

“I am sorry, Mother. I am very sorry, and I will not do it again.”

Finally deeming it safe to withdraw from the scene, Amandil let go of the boy, and went back to his seat next to Númendil. His father had been watching them in silence, but as he approached him, the lord of Andúnië could detect a wistful look in his sea-grey eyes.

“What is it?” Amandil asked. Númendil sighed softly.

“Your wife does not know whom this child takes after” he said. “But I do. It is you.”

“Me?” At first, the Lord of Andúnië thought that his father was joking, but it was not like him to do it in this manner. He remembered his childhood, mostly spent in cautious avoidance of the King and his allies, of the priests of the Temple, of doing the wrong thing and dying for it. “I can assure you, Father, I was nothing like this.”

Númendil waved this away.

“You may have forgotten, but I have not. Back in Sor, in Azzibal’s house, you were such a boisterous, reckless child! You feared nothing, and you believed you could fight all our enemies singlehanded. Sometimes, I wondered whose son you were, and why you were so different from me and my forebears. “His gaze became sad, and Amandil felt a sudden pang in his chest. “Then they came for you, and they taught you fear, caution, and secrecy. They taught you that you were just one child against a sea of malicious hate, spawned over centuries, and that there was nothing you could do except to be silent, think like them, and try to survive. That day, the child was gone, and he disappeared so thoroughly that even you have forgotten that he once existed. But here, in your grandson, you have a mirror in which you can see yourself, as you used to be.”

Amandil tried to speak, but he found that there was a knot in his throat, and many unbidden thoughts fighting their way inside his mind. It was very long since his father had made him feel this way, as if he had an old wound whose scabs were being picked to make it bleed anew. The saddest thing of all was that he was right: Amandil had many memories of the past, but the ones from Sor had fled his mind in time, never to be recovered. Perhaps his mind had not been able to reconcile them with what he later became, and so had tried to save him the discomfort.

He thought of Isildur, who was here, in front of him, even now complaining that he did not need to be carried, and that he was already feeling better. The boy might be in brief pain, and even be cautious around trees for a while, but that would not bother him for long. In no time, he would be trying to sneak away from his room and trying to force himself to walk on his sprained ankle. That was how he was; he did not know fear.

Because no one had taught it to him. And, he thought, with such a sudden intensity of feeling that he felt as if his chest would burst, no one ever would. Because they would never, ever, come for him, as long as Amandil lived.

“That is an admirable resolution” Númendil nodded, absently watching their family’s slow progress towards the gates of the house. “Do you know that Elves consider us foolish for believing that we can protect our children against anything? For them, though they are too polite to say so, we are like those animals that, living in the wilderness, cannot know if they will live to see another morning, and seek to perpetuate themselves in their young. What truly protects them, what truly protects us, is not our strength, but our numbers. That is why we have to believe that the world is safe for our children to live in, because we need to have them; otherwise, we would die out.”

Oh, so that was what they thought, didn’t they? Amandil shrugged. He knew that he owed them for that one time they saved his life, but he had never felt much affinity for that haughty immortal folk that his father associated with. If their infinite wisdom was what the King believed that Númenor needed, he could not disagree more.

As Amalket had put it before, they, the Númenóreans, were not infinite. As such, nothing of what the Elves could teach them would ever offer valid solutions for their short, finite, animal lives.

“Perhaps you are right.” Númendil conceded, with an equanimity that soon became tainted with a surprisingly raw pain. “And perhaps you can succeed where I failed.”

Amandil covered his hand with his in a gesture of comfort, wondering why his father’s skin was always so cold when compared to his.

“It was never your fault, Father.”

Númendil did not answer.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Palantir had always hated that room, from the days when Ar Gimilzôr had made it into his audience chamber. The mosaics covering the walls were brightly coloured, but their teachings were dark and somber, tainted to the core by the superstitions spread by the foul agents of the Enemy. Several Men lay asleep beside a running fountain, when Melkor appeared to them in a dream and ordered them to build a raft to sail the Great Sea. His image still hovered over them as they set to work, building the primitive vessel that would allow them to find the Promised Island, which floated aimlessly across the Sea until the selfless death of one of their number had rooted it to both Earth and Heaven.  A large pillar of stone grew towards the bottom of the sea, while another shot upwards towards the sky and disappeared behind the clouds, forming the Meneltarma. The city of Armenelos was built beside it, to be the dwelling place of both Kings, the one on Earth and the one in Heaven, fated to keep watch on each other forever from the summit of their respective hills.

All lies - except for the last one, he reminded himself, his gaze falling upon the mosaic depicting the temple of Melkor perched atop the height, with its white towers and amber-coloured dome. It did not matter that the real Melkor had been banished to the Void long ago: for him, for them, he was still there, and he remained a formidable enemy.

“We should not pay undue attention to malicious gossip”, he said, in a low voice that managed to carry across the sounds of loud argument. For a moment, Vorondil, Shemer, Zakarbal and Earnissë stopped talking to look at him. Míriel, as always, remained lost in her own thoughts, her gaze fixed upon the patterns of the obsidian floor.

“It used to be gossip, my lord King, when nobody dared attach his name to it”, Lord Shemer corrected him. “Now, it is treason.”

“We have to act against it, and do it fast, before it spreads!” Vorondil chimed in after his father. Zakarbal nodded ferociously.

“The Prince Vorondil is right. He should be removed from the scene now.”

Palantir sighed. His brother-in-law had never been an accommodating man, but since the Belfalas war, something which had always remained hidden behind the mask of courtly politeness had emerged from within, and it had never gone back to sleep again.

“You are exaggerating the extent of the issue. He has not risen in arms against the Sceptre, or anything of that sort. If war and violence cannot be avoided entirely, it is foolish to believe that they should be invoked under the meanest of pretexts, least of all within the Island.”

“Or perhaps you are too accommodating because you are afraid of him.”

The shock of hearing Eärnissë support her brother against him, for the first time in so many years, silenced him for a moment -which allowed her to continue, unchallenged.

“Rising in arms is not the only way to attack the Sceptre. You of all people should know this. Do you remember your kinsmen of Andúnië? All it takes is a single evil word to doom an entire house, if it falls on the right ears, and stirs the right emotions. If this evil word goes unchallenged…”

“…it will prove it was nothing but an evil word. If it is challenged, it will become fact”, he retorted. “It is not the place of the Sceptre to react to rumours.”

“They are not rumours!” Zarhil -for this was definitely Zarhil speaking, the Zarhil she had been years ago- shouted angrily. “Since the moment he mentioned it, everybody believed it, no matter what you do or do not do! How can you be so unfeeling? Are you her father, or not?”

You tell me that, he mused wryly, as his eyes travelled from her to the indifferent dark gaze of the target of the slander.

Why did the woman insist in fooling herself, together with their fool of their son-in-law? The Princess of the West could not be a victim of any such words, slanderous or not. She sat like the ivory statue of a goddess of Men, just as proud, and just as untouchable. She had never agonized over being inadequate for the succession, over the lack of heirs for the throne, and much less over what a High Priest claimed about her lack of fertility. It could be argued whether this was an attack on the Sceptre itself, of whether it deserved or not the name of treason, but feelings had nothing to do with it. Yehimelkor could not hurt her any more than he could hurt the stars in the sky -because for her, none of it mattered.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Míriel allowed her lips to curve in a brief smile.

“And what about me?” Vorondil intervened, gripping the armrest of her chair. “Isn’t my honour compromised, too?”

“No, my dear” she said, in a slow voice, as if talking to a child. “The High Priest claims that I cannot have children because my father’s line is cursed. You have nothing to do with it.”

“This concerns the King directly, and his decree of succession. Implicitly, it advocates a return to the late King’s will” Zakarbal noted, “which is what makes it treason.”

“And what exactly is godlier about the late King’s will, according to this man?” It had taken Vorondil a remarkably short time to recover his aplomb after Míriel’s derision. “Has the son of the Prince of the South been blessed with an heir?”

“Oh, he has been blessed with plenty of them, I am sure, but they will all be half-barbarian” Shemer snorted. “Though, who knows? Some of those halfwits who worship his so-called Holiness might prefer them to hold the Sceptre rather than the rightful line of Elros.”

For the first time in the conversation, Míriel looked upset. She stood up, and her chair fell back with a sharp noise.

“Is there a reason why I should be here, listening to your obscenities? I do not care what you do to this man Yehimelkor. Kill him, for all I care, or invite him to dinner, but I wish to leave now. May I?”

At once, Vorondil was all over her, apologizing for upsetting her, and Palantir had to swallow back a retort. If this airheaded fool had not realized yet that she feigned anger whenever she wanted to be rid of someone -or of many people at once, as it was now the case- he did not deserve anything but her contempt.

The problem being that contempt did not breed heirs.

“This is a delicate business. I am aware of what you think, Earnissë” he interjected quickly before she could interrupt him, “but Yehimelkor is not a man to be opposed lightly. He is the highest representative of him whom many of our subjects believe to be the Great God, the Lord of the Island, and as such, an attack on his person may have disastrous consequences for us all. And war in the Island is something that neither of us desire, even if we could afford it.”

If we could afford it. Unfortunately, that was the heart of the issue as he saw it. The last time he had allowed himself to open the gates of war, he had been certain that the coin would fall on his side, and that Pharazôn would have no option but to remain loyal. The next time, however, he would have to work with a dwindling amount of certainty. All his attempts to create another successful and equally powerful general had failed: Elendil had not been to his daughter’s liking, Vorondil was a damn fool, Hiram a mediocre commander, and Amandil could only absent himself for limited amounts of time, being as he was the lord of Andúnië. Even if any of them had been eligible, at this point Palantir was in doubt as to whether they could ever challenge the untouchable aura earned by the Golden Prince after his exploits in Belfalas. If the war hero joined hands with the holy man, a King who was perceived as being neither of the two might be at a disadvantage, and the symbolic power of the Sceptre might not be enough to compensate.

No, he thought. He had to tread very carefully around Yehimelkor.

“I will meet with him here, in the Palace. But it will be a strictly protocolary visit, and none of you will be present for the duration. “He stood up. “You are dismissed now.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Yehimelkor stood in the middle of the room, keeping still while the younger man hovered around him, arranging the folds of the purple cloak around his body with fastidious precision. As he did so, he gave no sign of being aware of the other’s movements, his mind lost in the increasingly complicated maze of his own thoughts.

“Your Holiness” a voice called to him. When he did not reply, it became higher, with a touch of impatience. “Your Holiness! You have to raise your arm.”

Yehimelkor complied. He knew the priest since he had entered the god’s service as a child, enough as to be aware of what he must be thinking right now.

“Yes, I do understand the importance of attire for a High Priest, and no, I would not fail to notice if I was wearing it upside down, Hasdrumelkor” he defended himself against the unspoken accusation. “But I trust you enough as to leave everything in your hands.”

Trust. It had taken him far too long, to trust. It hadn’t been this boy’s fault that there had been someone before him, or that this someone had betrayed him. In a way, it hadn’t even been Hannimelkor’s fault, if the god had willed it to happen, and still, he had been forced to contend with a sinful and unexpected bitterness for years, until he managed to purge it out. Luckily, Hasdrumelkor was a good soul, ready to forgive everything, which Yehimelkor had interpreted as a signal that the god had, too.

“I am worried, your Holiness”. Hasdrumelkor gave the finishing touches to his handiwork and leaned back to watch the result. As he did, his eyes caught those of the High Priest, and they were filled with a sudden uncertainty. “The King has never summoned you before. What if… he has heard…?”

He had never spoken a lie in his life, not even a white one.

“I am certain that he has.”

“But, then…”

“I cannot claim I will be safe, Hasdrumelkor. No man may ever claim such a thing in this world full of sin. All I can claim is that I will not dishonour the Lord or his temple, whose High Priest I am, in any way.”

“Let me go with you, Your Holiness.” The young priest bowed, his hands clenching on the marble floor. “Please.”

“There is nothing you can do for me there, except to put yourself in unnecessary danger. I will go alone, as my name was the only one mentioned in his summons.” He frowned. “No, you will not sway me in this. Stay here, and pray, for a prayer that is heard is mightiest than an army.”

Since he had received word from the King, this was the sixth time he had refused an escort of any size and shape, and every time he had done so with the same words. If only the priests were as zealous about their duty as they were brave, the skies would ring with prayers for his safe return, but he knew that most of them would prefer to waste their time in mindless fretting and speculation.

He sighed, gathering the complicated folds of his robe and heading towards the corridor, where many of his fellow priests paused in their tasks and conversations to bow at him in silence. He could also surrender to the temptation of speculating, of pondering what the chances were of coming out of this unscathed, versus the chances of dispelling some of the blindness which ailed the King. The first did not concern him overmuch, for his life had not belonged to him for so long that he could not even remember how it felt when it was still his. The second, however – if he did have ten lives to spare, he would risk them for this outcome.

The Palace Guards were waiting in the entrance hall, standing on the stairs that led to the Hall of Sacrifices, where the Holy Fire blazed without interruption. As he came in their sight, they stiffened visibly, falling in formation, confirming his supposition that he was a prisoner under the name of a guest. Many of them, however, had a look of uneasiness in their faces that also confirmed something else: they were in awe of the holiness of Melkor, which meant that they were not entirely his. It was a hopeful sign, however small.

It would have to suffice.

“Lead the way, gentlemen”, he bade them, falling behind them as a prince behind his escort.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“The High Priest of Melkor”, the herald announced, with a large, booming voice that seemed incongruous in these surroundings. Palantir had wished for complete privacy, so he was sitting in his own secret garden, little more than a terrace in the open air behind his study. From his vantage point, he could see the man walking past three large tables almost completely covered with stacks of old manuscripts, which lay scattered in a chaotic jumble where no one would be able to find anything except for Palantir himself. If Amandil had been right about his former Revered Father, this sight would be met with the utmost disapproval -but compared with all the reasons the man already had to disapprove of him, such a minor thing would barely count.

And, most importantly, Yehimelkor’s disapproval was irrelevant here.

“Be welcome, my lord.” He would not call him Holiness, as any claim to a sacred status he may have was derived from the Enemy, but he had to admit, deep inside, that Yehimelkor had always looked holy. He also spoke holy words, sometimes only barely tainted with superstitious gibberish, and carried himself with the utmost dignity in every Council session. Eyewitnesses agreed that he cut an even more impressive figure when he stood before the flaming altar, preaching to the people that Palantir’s line was cursed by the gods.

“My lord King.” He bowed curtly, gathering the folds of his impressive purple cloak to sit down where he was motioned to. Palantir poured him a cup of tea, but he stretched a large, pale hand in a gesture of refusal. “I do not eat or drink while the sun is still in the sky for a month before the Festival of the King.”

“As you wish. “Palantir took the cup, and drank from it himself under the impassive gaze. Suddenly, he thought he understood part of the hold that this man had over other, lesser men: they felt constantly judged by him. “Perhaps you do not know why you have been summoned here.”

“I assume I am here for speaking the truth about you and your line.” Yehimelkor did not mince words, not even in private. “The truth is always a terrible offense for those who have chosen to turn their backs to it.”

“And you have conferred upon yourself the sole authority to determine what the truth is” Palantir retorted, coldly. “Only you, in your infinite wisdom, can know the true cause of a woman’s failure to become pregnant. Only you can know what lies outside the Circles of the World, the names and attributes of invisible beings who guide us, and whether they approve or disapprove of what we do.”

Yehimelkor did not even blink.

“The same could be said about you.”

“I am the King of Númenor!” Whatever had happened to his resolution to remain calm? “I can force you to resign. I can have you tried for treason. I can…”

“Take my life? No, my lord King, you cannot, as it does not belong to me.”

Palantir forced himself to gather back his composure. What on Earth was he doing? He had been aware from the beginning of the fact that intimidation would not work with this man. Why had he allowed himself to fall in this trap, as if he was a hot-headed youngster, eager to prove that he was stronger and better, that he was in control and would have the last word?

Yehimelkor did not value his own life. He was a true believer, as true as Palantir himself could be in his strongest moments, and though what he believed was false, this did not affect his perception of it. Men like this could be threatened with anything, and they still would have the last word.

“So, this is what you mean when you preach about the holiness of sacrifice,” he spoke after a while, his voice back to his usual, calm tone. “A mortal man’s sacrifice is holy to the extent to which it mirrors the sacrifice of your god.”

“I am honoured that you have taken good note of my words, my lord King.” If there was irony in Yehimelkor’s words, it was very well hidden. “I only wish they could have served you better.”

“But life is holy, too, according to your teachings.” He refused to rise to the bait. “Throwing it away is the most terrible of sins.”

“Not if there is a higher purpose.”

“And what higher purpose can be served by insulting me and my daughter in front of the people of Armenelos?”

“That they will not be led astray by the lies which corrupted you, back when you were a young man, and are now threatening to corrupt all of Númenor.”

“What you call corruption is nothing but the awareness of what we lost, when we forgot our true alliances and beliefs, and fell under the evil influence of the Dark Enemy of the World. You live in a cave, reaching for shadows, and refuse to climb back to the light and see the truth.”

“I know something about your beliefs, too.” Yehimelkor, ever the polemist, stared at him intently. “Your Dark Enemy is in the Void, outside the Circles of the World, is he not? Then how could he exert a corrupting influence over us, how could he convince us that everything that we believed to be evil was, in fact, fair and good?”

“Because he marred the world, and the shadow of his presence remained henceforth. Have you heard of Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor in the mainland? He was his chief servant, and there are many others, still roaming this world.”

“I cannot claim to know much about the affairs of the mainland, as I believe that we should not have settled there or sought to grasp what did not belong to us. However, my lord King, why would this Sauron hate us and wage war on us, if we were his natural allies?”

“Because…” As he wondered about this, all of a sudden, the answer was chillingly clear in Palantir’s mind. “Because you still believe that fair and good things are fair and good, even if your god is not. But this will not last for ever. One day, Númenor will either fall to darkness together with the evil it worships or renounce it totally and be saved.”

Now, it was Yehimelkor who fell silent for a moment. He shook his head.

“If that is your purpose, you cannot possibly succeed. Even you have to admit it, the gods are on my side. On your side, there is only emptiness and silence. Beings who are removed from us, who do not heed us or answer our prayers. Beings born from an intellectual’s wish to rationalize their lack of belief, an intellectual who did not understand that, even if his powerful mind protected him from despair, it would not protect the others once that his teachings spread.”

“Above all of them, there is still Eru.”

“Eru is outside the Circles of the World. How can you pretend to reach him without intermediaries?”

“So, what happened to the search for the truth?” Palantir frowned. “You speak of convenience now. What if the truth is not convenient? What if it is not comforting, what if it leads weaker minds into despair? Wouldn’t it be the truth, still?”

“No.” Yehimelkor answered firmly. “I have felt the Lord within me, I have experienced his power, and his guidance. If your truth offers no hope to Men, then it cannot be the truth at all.”

“But the truth I speak of does hold hope, as well, even if you cannot fathom a hope that does not spring from the worship of your false gods.” Palantir retorted. “If you have ever felt this hope, then perhaps you have been touched by this gift. Estel, the Elves call it, the faith in something higher than ourselves which will deliver us from evil.”

“I can assure you, my lord King, that I have felt it, and it sprung from the worship of what you call my false god. If you wish to give it an Elvish name and appropriate it for your twisted scheme of things, you may do it, but you must know that it will remain within me, forcing me to defy you until my dying breath.”

You bloody fool, how can you be so blind and deaf as to refuse to consider that we should be on the same side? Palantir wanted nothing more than to grab him by the purple folds of his robe, and shake him until he could make him understand. But those efforts would yield nothing, he knew that well enough by now.

“I have a dream, almost every night” he said, instead. “A Wave, which rises from the West and engulfs this island, drowning each and every one of its inhabitants in punishment for our terrible sins. I believe this dream will come to pass, as many of the foresighted dreams of our line, and all my efforts, all my policies, have as their ultimate goal to prevent it. That is why I must oppose you, your god, and your teachings, to save Númenor.”

This, at last, managed to leave Yehimelkor speechless. For a hopeful moment, Palantir even believed he could see a flicker of uncertainty in his expression, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared.

“My lord King, I have a dream every night, too. I see a dark god rising in the mainland, and towering over Númenor like a cloud of black smoke. That is why I have always opposed your campaigns in Middle Earth, and the rebuilding of Pelargir. And that is why I will always oppose you, because I see nothing but godlessness in your path, and if the Island becomes godless, it will fall all the more easily to this dark god.”

Now, it was Palantir’s turn to stare. His mind reeled. Could this… dream be a prophecy, like his? Yehimelkor belonged to the line of Elros, so it could be foresight, but - this begged the next question. Why would the Creator send them opposing directives? Why would He pointlessly pit them against each other instead of uniting them in the same purpose? That was simply not possible, so it had to mean that their dreams were somehow complementary. Was this darkness coming from the mainland related to the Wave, like a puzzle whose pieces had to be put together?

If only Yehimelkor would cooperate with him!

“Yehimelkor, you and I share the same blood. We should unite our efforts, instead of fighting each other,” he finally said it aloud. To his own shock, it came out sounding slightly like a plea, but he waved the shame away. “My grandfather, Melkorbazer, was a priest of Melkor like you, and your close kinsman, and he loved my grandmother and my mother, though he should have regarded their family as his enemy.”

This had been the wrong example, as he realized as soon as it had left his mouth.

“My kinsman broke his most sacred obligations out of lust for a beautiful woman. I have often been suspected only for sharing his blood, but I am nothing at all like him, my lord King. Make no mistake”, Yehimelkor replied, coldly.

But Palantir did not surrender yet.

“You saved the life of another of my kinsmen, Amandil, in defiance of my father, and raised him under your protection. This was not a betrayal of your obligations, and it was not done out of lust. It showed a high moral character, and your ability to see beyond the simple labels of names and affiliations.”

“Names and affiliations do not matter to me, but there are higher things which should matter to us all.” Unbidden, Yehimelkor stood up; though thin and slight of build, he seemed to tower over him for a moment. “I am here in your chambers, my lord King. You can free me and let me go back to my duties, or you can put a stop to my activities now; the choice is yours. But you cannot do both, for that is even beyond the reach of the Númenórean Sceptre.”

Beyond the reach of the Númenórean Sceptre, and beyond the reach of anything and anyone in this world, except perhaps Eru, Palantir thought, struggling with the stinging feelings of disappointment that welled inside his chest. To his surprise, there was also a little sadness in there.

“Very well, Yehimelkor. If this is what your god tells you, be my enemy. If this is what your god wants, let us tear Númenor apart fighting each other instead of joining hands, and if it is his will you can die calling his name, for I will not allow you to cause the death of innocents, or divert me from my purpose. Let this be the last warning that you shall receive.”

The High Priest bowed. For some reason, this time it was a proper bow, much lower than the perfunctory nod he had given him upon his arrival, though Palantir doubted that he had managed to earn a morsel of his respect during this conversation, much less cowed him with his threats.

Maybe, a chilly voice whispered in his ear, it was a bow of farewell.

“My lord King.”