Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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Amandil blinked, the frown in his forehead increasing as his eyes focused upon the only source of light in the room. It had always been hard to direct the thread of his thoughts across such great distances, and he was often about to let them slip away from his grasp, like a child trying to grab the white foam of the surf. He had seen his father do it many times, as easily as if he was talking to someone across a tray of drinks, but whenever he tried to emulate him, he found that he lacked the subtlety for it -or, perhaps, the inner strength.

Still, fumbling painfully or not, this was their only means of communication, and he had to pour all his efforts in making it work.

As I said, there is greater unrest here now than there has been in the last years, the voice of Elendil whispered in his mind. The Arnians find these new policies senseless. I, however, am afraid that they are not, that there is something else behind them. If you could confront the King about it…

Amandil pushed his thoughts into the Orb. For a moment, he even fancied that he could see them swirl inside, as fragmented and confusing as they were inside his own mind. Then, he focused again.

I will try. Meanwhile, be careful. Father perceives a darkness clouding our future, and it is in the mainland that it is gathering. I do not claim to be an interpreter of visions, but I feel that we cannot afford to make enemies out of the Arnians.

I will be careful, Father. The light flickered once more, then was extinguished, leaving the room in total darkness. For a while, Amandil just sat there, feeling the pangs of a growing headache torture his temples as he pondered every detail of the new information he had received. Almost unconsciously, his hand began to massage the pain away from his forehead, and he noticed that it was trembling slightly.

With a long, shuddering breath, the lord of Andúnië stood on his feet, put the Seeing Stone back into its bag, and left to search for the wine jar in his study.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“… he was much younger back then than you are now, but then again, his father did not live with us, so he had to grow up very early in some respects. Not all respects of course: girls were a sore spot with him for a very, very long time. Until the day of his wedding, I daresay!” He could hear her drawn out chuckle, and even though there was a wall between them and him, he imagined his politely incredulous smile, and the flawless attention with which he forced himself to listen to stories he had already been subjected to a hundred times. The unfortunate young man had the dubious honour of looking like a somewhat shorter version of his father, and he lacked the heart to refuse her whenever she was in a talkative mood, so Amalket had latched on to him like a limpet in her loneliness. “Back when he was training with the Guards, as I said, he was so good that, soon, he was getting substantial offers from some of the richer students to let himself lose against them, so they would catch the attention of the instructors.”

“Oh, no, really? And what did he say?”

Amandil allowed himself to stop in his tracks a moment before he reached the threshold. It was early enough, they still had a few minutes to spare until she finished her story.

“Well, things were a little complicated for us at that moment. I doubt you can even imagine it, being born in such a rich and noble house, but our house was not noble and it certainly was not rich. We used to receive money every month from what we believed were your grandfather’s associates in Sor, but in fact it was sent by…”

“The King”, Anárion finished for her.

“Now, he is the King, yes, but not yet back then. He was only a prince. Halideyid had no more idea of this than I did, but he still resented it, and managed to convince the men sent from the Palace that he did not need it. But then, he found that if he did not swallow his pride on one front, he would have to swallow it on another. Money had to come from somewhere, and he did not want me or Mother -that would be your great-grandmother, may Eru have her soul- to discover what had happened.”

“So, what did he do, then?”

“Well, somehow, he managed to convince one of those rich students that it would increase his chances for admission if he paid him for private lessons instead of giving him the money to feign defeat. Word caught on, and after a couple of months he was teaching five of his peers separately, all in secret of course. He managed to convince me that he had been taken on as an instructor by the Guards themselves, and I suspected nothing for a long time! But in the end, the joke was on him, because he was taken on as instructor by the Guards, and he had to work double shifts, and there was no way to explain that. He always tried, though, he was never one to surrender easily. Like that other time, when he left the Guards…”

Before she could start on this new topic, however, Amandil stepped out of the shadows of the corridor. He felt slightly guilty when he saw her look of disappointment, but she was given enough chances to share her old stories as it was.

“I apologize for the intrusion, Amalket, but Anárion has to go get ready. The Council session will start in an hour”, he said. Taking his cue to escape, the young man took her hand, bowed to her, and silently left the room.

She gazed at his retreating form, and then at the empty doorstep, thoughtfully. For a moment, Amandil wondered if she even remembered that he was standing next to her, but when he was about to open his mouth to make some conversation, she spoke first.

“How is Halideyid?” she asked.

Amandil blinked. She was so good at playing the doting old lady whenever it suited her, that sometimes he almost forgot that her mind remained as sound as ever.

“Well enough”, he replied, after some hesitation. “Though it appears that Númenor is making things difficult for him.”

She pursed her lips in what he had learned to recognize as utmost disapproval.

“We have no business ruling barbarian lands. They are too far away, and they are not like us at all, or think as we do. That priest you used to serve had the right of it.”

You would not care at all about mainland policies if it was not your son who was forced to live in Arne because of them, he thought, not entirely unsympathetically.

“And how is Eluzîni? And Isildur and Ilmarë? Did he say…?”

“The Seeing Stone’s function is not to exchange idle gossip”, he cut her before she could ask more questions. She looked so upset at this, however, that he felt the need to backtrack at once. “If… anything of note had happened to them, he would have told me.”

His course correction did nothing to help her anger abate.

“You probably think that this is enough information for me, and that I should be content with it”, she spat. “If only I was younger, I would have travelled to Arne myself long ago. I fulfil no purpose here, I am just an old woman who embarrasses you, and distracts you from your all-important duties with her annoying needs.”

Amandil had heard this often enough as to feel challenged by the grains of truth that may have slid in through the crevices of her bitter imagination. Every time, he had reacted differently, depending on his mood: at his worst, the kindest thing he had managed to say was that it was not her fault that this was so, after which she had refused to speak to him for a month. At his best, he had forced himself to rise to the occasion and swear that she did not embarrass him or distract him, that he loved her and always had, and vowed to spend more time with her. But then, she had discarded her sour mood, and looked so terribly vulnerable that, for a moment, he could almost look past the wrinkles, the white hairs and the bent shoulders, and see the Armenelos girl who had seduced a young priest in the grounds of the Temple of Armenelos. And this had been so devastating that he did not think he could bear it again.

It was unfair. For so many years it had been her, who had been distant and refused to open her heart in spite of his pleas. She had turned into an esteemed stranger, the Lady of Andúnië in nothing but in name, and to break this ancient pact now and leave him to deal with the pain would be sheer cruelty. Even Ashad had not refused Amal the joys of mutual love while they were both young and hale, and now she had the memories of this to comfort her in her loneliness.

There is a hole in your heart where your love used to be, and it is ugly and empty.

“No, you are right”, he said, carefully measuring his words. “This is not enough information for you, and neither is it for me. We should go back to writing letters, and fill them with all those small things that seem unimportant in the great schemes of the high and mighty. But now, I do have to go. If things go smoothly in the Council session today, perhaps we could do it tomorrow, or even this evening.”

“If you are too busy, I will do it with Anárion”, she retorted, latching onto his slight hesitation with the full force of her resentment. As their grandson chose this moment to stride back into the room, Amandil was saved the need to find an answer for this.

“Let us depart” he said.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The Main Gate was a flurry of activity, teeming with the entourages of all the councilmen who had just arrived for today’s session. As usual, by the time they arrived loud disputes had already erupted between the newcomers and the soldiers of Pharazôn’s Palace Guard. The former Palace Guards had spent generations training their heirs in protocol since they were children, and they had been aware of who could cross each threshold and what honours they were due, but these newcomers ignored many subtle details of their occupation, and more often than not they did not seem too bothered with learning them at all. On the other hand, their low social extraction, especially when it came to those of mixed race, made the least among the petty courtiers of a nobleman’s entourage even more prone to offense when forced to deal with them. Usually, this bickering did not manage to cross the Palace walls, but sometimes it had caused ripples, to the point of delaying a Council session or two. The King had pretended to be angry, and seized the opportunity to just ban everyone, except for the councilmen themselves and their aides, from entering the Palace when on a session. This, however, had not solved the problem entirely, as the entourages still had to be at least partly accommodated in the Outer Courtyard, and the bickering over the logistics of this had continued under the new access rules.

Amandil had always tried to remain above such petty dealings, professing not to care about orders of pre-eminence, seats of honour, or any such courtly concerns. Perhaps because of this, the Guards tended to award him and his people more respect than they did the others, to the point of giving them preferential treatment whether they were the first or the last to arrive. Now, as he crossed the throng into the open expanse of the courtyard gardens, he saw from the corner of his eye that they were forcing others away from the seats they had occupied under the archways to accommodate his followers. He pretended to ignore it.

“They are the people of the Lord of Orrostar”, Anárion remarked behind him. As Amandil disliked the man, this news made him feel a guilty surge of satisfaction.

“Well, perhaps that will teach him to arrive earlier next time.”

“But he arrived earlier.” His grandson sounded surprised. “He was here long before us.”

Not here, but in Armenelos at the head of his army, two years ago, Amandil could have explained, but he realized that it did not just sound as petty in his own head as the bickering of the Palace halls, but also, somehow, misplaced. Even though not for the same reasons as that old coward, he, too, would have stayed out of the conflict if Pharazôn had not outright blackmailed him. The day he started feeling proud of this might well be the day that he became one of the courtiers he had always despised so much.

In the end, he said nothing, and his silence passed unchallenged. After a while, it was Anárion himself who broke it timidly to change the subject, informing him of all the evidence he had gathered on the subject for today’s discussion, and the documents he had brought with him. Amandil nodded absently to all of it, trying not to think of how he missed Elendil more than ever.

“That was very thorough work” he complimented him, with no real warmth to his voice.

He could not help it. Anárion was a good young man, but sometimes a little too much for Amandil’s liking. Part of the explanation might be that he was too far removed in both age and kinship to think of confronting him, but his general personality did not help, either. Being a second son was not a common occurrence in the ancient and barren family trees of Númenórean nobility, and adoption by another powerful family was often the fate of such anomalies. The few instances that Amandil could remember that went against this tacit norm had each been marked by a strong development in quite diverging directions. Everybody knew of Inziladûn and Gimilkhâd, how they had always hated each other and how the second had always done everything he could to thwart the first in all his policies. Everybody knew, too, of Lord Shemer’s brother Itashtart, and how he had refused all responsibilities since his youth, preferring to carve himself a reputation among the party circles, the seedy taverns and the dancing halls of Armenelos. Anárion’s development had not been so conspicuous, but he still had been conditioned in his own way. Since he was a child, he had been reserved, dutiful, so eager to please and be of help that Amandil had to wonder if he had consciously forbidden himself to think of his own fate as anything which could ever take a direction of its own.

But then, Lord Itashtart had become the lord of Hyarnustar in the end, even against his own will. And though the Prince of the South had not lived to see it, it was his son who held the Sceptre now. Things were not so immutable as they used to be, and they all had to be prepared for anything. What if something were to happen in Arne? There were several reasons, not all of them pleasant, why Elendil’s second son had to stay in Númenor.

“There we are” he said, wondering how would Anárion react if he subjected him to such ramblings. He would probably nod to everything and promise to keep it in mind, while perhaps secretly thinking that his grandfather was insane.

Their pace slowed a little, almost without thinking, as they passed near the place where the White Tree stood in splendid isolation. Neglected for hundreds of years by the successive monarchs who had lived in this Palace, its fate, too, had changed all of a sudden after Tar Palantir’s accession. The Faithful King had held it in reverence as a symbol of his line and its ancient alliance with the Valar of the Undying Lands, from whence it had come, and right before his death he had even prophesized upon it, joining the fate of Númenor and its Kings to its continued existence. Because of this, there were guards standing watch over it now, and the only people who were allowed access was the legion of royal gardeners who came every day to tend it and check on its health, though as far as Amandil knew there was nothing which suited the tree better than to thrive on its own.

Once, a young Isildur had told him that his dream of the Wave had featured this tree, which was in itself nothing unusual, as the King’s dreams had followed a similar pattern. Isildur, however, had expounded on some confusing details regarding an attempt to climb it and the ghost of his friend Malik, which still had the power to make him repress a shiver long after he awoke. Sometimes, Amandil wondered if his elder grandson still had those dreams, and if he had managed to extract some clearer notion about what they could mean.

“Have you ever dreamed of this tree, Anárion?” he asked, on a sudden impulse. Grey eyes blinked back at him, in quickly repressed surprise.

“No, Grandfather. That was Isildur.”

Anárion had never been very forthcoming about his dreams, at least not with him. Amandil was vaguely aware that he had discussed them with his father at some point, but as Elendil himself did not dream, he wondered if his counsel could have been of much use.

“I know that was Isildur, I just wondered if you had the same dream as him” he answered, somewhat shortly.

“I am sorry, Grandfather.”

“And stop apologizing for everything.”

“Sorry… I mean, I will not do it again.” His brow furrowed, and he seemed to be pondering whether to continue talking or not. “Unless it is - warranted, I guess.”

For the first time in the day -and, he suspected, last- Amandil allowed himself a brief smile.

“Let us join the others.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The Council of Númenor under Ar Pharazôn seemed, at first sight, to have diverged little from what it had been in the last years of Tar Palantir’s reign. The most conspicuous differences in the rows of sitting lords and courtiers had been two: the appointment of a second military governor to fill the place of the extinct lords of Sorontil, and the seat awarded to the colonists from Pelargir, who had joined the Council a year ago and now sat to the left of the Umbar magistrate. This illusion of continuity, however, was deceiving to the extreme, as Amandil had learned the hard way in recent times. In truth, almost nothing was the way it used to be, and as soon as a contentious matter was raised, he was more likely to find silent countenances and averted glances than any sort of opposition rising from any direction.

To the right of the Chamber, next to Amandil himself, the old general who occupied Hiram’s seat was of course one of Pharazôn’s veterans from the mainland, whose chief contribution was to grunt and nod in approval at whatever the King said. The lord of Hyarnustar showed little interest in any of the proceedings, and was constantly fighting not to fall asleep -perhaps, as it was rumoured, he continued with his revelries even now, or perhaps he had merely grown old enough for his tumultuous past to catch up with his health. The Northeastern lord had always preferred to see where the tide turned before he opened his mouth, and he had not changed much in that respect. As for the courtiers, the only reason why Ar Zimrathôn had added them to the Council at all was that their policy was always to support the King, whoever he might be, as they lived too close to him for their interests to be truly separated from his whims. Amandil had seen this pattern repeat itself with Ar Gimilzôr, Tar Palantir, and now Ar Pharazôn. The governor of Sor and the magistrate of Umbar had always belonged to the Prince of the South’s party, and the old Palace Priest had been forced to resign on the grounds of being the brother-in-law of the Northern traitor, and replaced by an obscure priest from the colonies. The man appointed from Pelargir, though the King claimed to have no say in the city’s choice, was unsurprisingly not of the Faithful who made up the majority of the population, but a rich merchant of former Merchant Prince stock, and the High Priest of the Forbidden Bay’s sycophantic fawning overdid even all the rest of them put together. The idea that his old rivals, the Lords of Andúnië, had the King’s favour had been haunting him since Pharazôn and Zimraphel took up the Sceptre.

And he said he was not good at this, he thought ruefully, fixing the King with a long stare. Tar Palantir had been standing in that same spot for seventy-eight years, and even after all that time he had been unable to avoid being silenced by the shouts of those who wanted the Prince of the South to lead the armies in the mainland. He had been fighting against the tide, trying to turn back time and imposing ancient and misunderstood beliefs on a kingdom which had long forgotten the old ways, and yet, he had been no less their King. Perhaps, if he had shown from the start that he would not hesitate to destroy whoever opposed him, his might still have been a different story, with a different ending. But then again, no matter how sharp his eyes had been and how quick his intelligence, he had always remained an intellectual at heart, ready to polemize, strategize and play mind games with the people around him -to do anything, in fact, except what Pharazôn had aptly described as “being a war general”.

The only way that a bunch of noblemen from ancient and powerful houses were likely to be convinced to accept change of any sort was to have a sword pointed at their throats. Ar Adunakhôr already knew that very well, four hundred years ago.

Now, he thought, he was feeling more than ever as if the only true survivor from this dying race of ancient and powerful noblemen was him, for whatever it was worth. He wondered how long it would be before the sword was pointed at his throat.

“I see that Lord Amandil wishes to raise an objection. How surprising”, the King said, his tone dripping with irony.

“My apologies, my lord King, if I am inconveniencing you with the slowness of my mind. I am merely seeking to understand what the purpose of all these new defensive measures could be”, he replied, no less ironically. “Oh, I agree, there is wisdom in maintaining large armies in the mainland, to defend the colonies. There is wisdom in raising taxes to feed and equip them. But this has always been done, and no King has ever discontinued those policies. I had a harder time understanding the need of a permanent garrison in Sor and another in Armenelos, but since this Council and the governor himself decided that the people living in those cities would not be inconvenienced, I suppose it does not matter.”

The eyes of the governor of Sor gleamed.

“That tone of yours is an offence to the King and the Council, my lord.”

“Do not interrupt me, lord governor”, Amandil shot back, and he could see, in some satisfaction, that the man flinched in spite of himself. Ar Pharazôn’s countenance betrayed nothing. “Then, there is Forostar. I understand that the harbour of Sorontil would be used as a secondary port for the royal fleet, as the harbour of Sor is overflowing with trade and in spite of its size it is not enough for the large needs of our defensive fleet. After all, Sauron may invade us by sea at any time, and every precaution we take would be too little.” Uneasy murmurations were growing in intensity, though he was not interrupted again. “But there are also land armies in there now. What are they guarding? Who are they watching? I hope it is not me.”

“They are guarding nothing and watching no one, Lord Amandil”, General Eshmounazer replied angrily. “It is a colony for retired veterans, nothing more. Forostar was too sparsely populated, compared with the rest of the Island, which made it an ideal place for such an endeavour. Though perhaps you have a guilty conscience, to speak like this.”

“What I have is eyes on my head, general, and many of those soldiers are too young for retirement. I guess, however, that the age of retirement of the soldiers is none of my concern, which is why I will speak no further of it.” In dismay, he wondered if it was even possible to wring a reaction from those lords by expounding on the potential ugly consequences of these arrangements. Since no one seemed willing to look at him, he had the suspicion that they were probably all too aware of them. “I am more concerned about these new decrees, which require raising the taxes for all the colonies and client tribes and kingdoms in the mainland, and the muster of forces both in the Island and the mainland, still for defensive purposes. Above all, I have listened to well-informed concerns about the convenience of integrating the Arnian army into the Númenórean army, which would allow it to be mobilized away from Arne if the King or any of his legates required it.”

“I see.” For the first time, it was Ar Pharazôn himself who replied. “You are speaking on behalf of your son.”

“Considering that Arne has no seat on this Council, I am afraid that he would not be able to make his concerns heard otherwise.”

“Arne is not part of Númenor!” the man from Pelargir cried. Amandil did not wish to let himself be distracted by this particular argument, so he shook his head.

“I am not here to discuss the status of Arne. Neither was it my only purpose to speak about the situation there. My concerns are general, and they include both the Island and the mainland.”

“Then speak plainly.” There was a glint in the King’s eye that Amandil knew only too well. He did not back down.

“I question the need for all these measures. We are not in any danger. Our defences are not compromised. Sauron was soundly defeated less than three years ago, and since then the mainland has only known a few skirmishes with lawless bands of Orcs in the borders of Arne and a minor uprising over trade rights in Harad, which lasted exactly four days.”

“Well, as far as I know, your own grandson almost fell in one of those minor skirmishes that you speak of”, Pharazôn shrugged. Of course, he would have heard about it from his spies. “But perhaps you are not overly concerned about this, since your son has a second heir.”

Amandil did not look at Anárion, but he knew that everyone else had instinctively done so, and that the young man would be feeling very uncomfortable under their stares.

“My grandson put himself in danger of his own free will, to protect Númenor and Arne. We already have many like him, and they are successfully keeping the armies of Darkness at bay within the mountains of Mordor. And yet for you, my lord King, it is not enough. You are acting as if this was some all-out war, like those our ancestors fought in the days of old.”

“I am surprised. Were the wars of Arne and Pelargir fought by our ancestors, then? Were the two Haradric wars their doing, too? I thought you were there, but perhaps you have chosen to forget.” The glint in Pharazôn’s eye became as hard as newly minted steel, and even before he opened his mouth again, Amandil knew that the blow would come. “After all, your incompetence and lack of foresight got many people killed in both places. When it comes to war, excuse me if I prefer to pay heed to my own instincts rather than yours.”

Hot-white anger blinded the lord of Andúnië for a moment, and only the vague awareness that Pharazôn was trying to goad him into going too far was able to restrain him. Even as he forced himself to swallow and look composed, however, the words swirled in his brain and choked his throat, fighting to get out.

“Do as you wish then, my lord King”, he willed his mouth to say, his thoughts still in furious disarray. How would it feel to punch him in the face? Would he be able to make him bleed before someone came to stop him? “Follow your instincts.”

Ar Pharazôn smiled.

“I am glad I have your permission to do so.”

Amandil sat down amid a chaos of whispers, which gradually began to die out as the King expounded on the next item in the day’s agenda.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The ride home was a silent one, with Amandil’s mind pondering over and over the exchanges of the previous hours. In the end, Ar Pharazôn had had his way in everything, as he always did, and no one except him had voiced any serious objections. Furthermore, considering his previous experiences, he did not harbour much hope that this umpteenth confrontation had managed to kindle some ember of doubt in the general horizon of apathy. What could be seen as a moderately hopeful sign, however, was that Pharazôn himself had felt cornered enough as to lash out; surely even he must be aware that the arguments that supported his policies were flimsy. Perhaps flimsy enough as to become useless if there was unrest in the mainland because of it. Amandil hoped that he would not close his eyes to the danger that lurked there if he allowed that particular door to open; whatever else might be said about him, Ar Pharazôn the Golden was not an idiot.

Not an idiot, maybe, but quite a piece of work when he set his mind to it, he mused as he sat on the veranda of his private study, a cup of wine in his hands. No one had openly blamed Amandil for those who died in his expedition to Arne; instead, they had attributed the responsibility to Noxaris and his black, traitorous heart. Some had even praised him for his ability to lead the survivors through hostile territory and return them safely to Númenor. As for the second Haradric war, he was aware of making mistakes, though as he recalled, sometimes quite distinctly, he had not been the only one. Unlike Pharazôn, however, who was quite unconcerned by lists of casualties as long as his objectives were fulfilled, Amandil had never been able to forget entirely, and those deaths would always remain on his conscience, no matter how much time had passed. This was one weakness that he knew he had made the mistake of betraying to the war general at some point; one among many.

“Are you drunk, or were you just getting started?” a voice interrupted his sombre musings. Unable to believe his ears, he blinked, wondering if he was drunk, though only a sip of wine had managed to make its way past his lips so far.

The figure who stood at the veranda, however, looked too solid to be a drunken vision, and gradually he began to grow aware of the truth.

“Who let you in?” was the first thing that came to his head.

The King -for it was the King of Númenor standing beside him, looking for all the world as if it had been just yesterday that he had last showed up for a visit- laughed at this.

“Had you left orders not to let me pass? If so, I am afraid that they all appeared too dumbfounded to remember them.”

Amandil swallowed, trying to regain his composure. He could not allow this mad stunt to blindside him, which was probably what Pharazôn -no, he reminded himself, Ar Pharazôn- had intended. And he should never, ever, lower his guard in front of him again; he had been doing it long enough.

“Wine, my lord King?”

“I was afraid you would never ask.”

Amandil rose to find a second cup; without further ado, Pharazôn sat on the veranda right beside the place where he had been a moment ago.

“May I inquire as to the purpose of this visit?” the lord of Andúnië asked, as he finally sat next to him again, holding a cup in each hand. Pharazôn reached for the nearest one and grabbed it.

“There are several. First, I wished to apologize for that unwarranted and undeserved attack on your leadership skills.”

Amandil raised an eyebrow. So that was how things were, wasn´t it?

“A private apology cannot cancel a public offense, as you very well know. My lord King.”

“If I could offer you a public apology, I would not have needed to offend you publicly in the first place.”

Amandil shrugged sarcastically.

“Well, that settles the matter, I suppose.”

“What were you going to say back then? When you forced yourself to swallow a retort, what would it have been?”

“It would have been the last thing one should ever tell a King.”

“To go get fucked by a goat?”

“That it was lucky for you I was present in Harad, since without me you would not be alive now. Do you remember? It was back when you were not always the infallible warrior that most people believe you to be, and could walk into traps like the rest of us. Perhaps even a touch more readily than the rest of us, if some of my recollections are correct.”

If Pharazôn was surprised at this, he gave no overt signs of it.

“I see.” For a while, he let his gaze wander through the growing shadows of the small courtyard. He looked wistful, almost a world away from the insolent confidence he had exhibited earlier. Just as Amandil was wondering what the whole point of this strange charade could be, however, he spoke again.

“The Council of Númenor is nothing but a pack of rabid dogs. If I show weakness before them, they will pounce.”

“I am surprised to hear you say that. Compared with the late King’s Council, this one seems like a model of compliance to me. When was the last time that someone other than me has questioned any of your decisions?”

“That is all a lie!” Pharazôn hissed. “It is just so on the surface, precisely because they are too afraid of me to show their true colours. But if they saw me lying on the ground, no one would offer a hand to lift me up; and if they smelled blood, they would attack. And they are but the closest evidence of something you can find elsewhere. The clergy of Melkor hates me because I am an incestuous sinner, though most pretend to bear with me under threat. The clergy of the Bay is only compliant because they fear I will favour your hypothetical pretensions to recover your ancestral lands. The people of Forostar hate me because of the soldiers, and though in the colonies they are less ready to underestimate the threat posed by the Dark Lord, even they will be angry at those new measures. As for the great landholder families that remain, I think they must be praying daily for my demise.”

“How ironic.” Amandil could not resist. “You were the first to deride Ar Gimilzôr and Tar Palantir for what you deemed their paranoia, and now it turns out that it can happen to the very best of us.”

The King looked irritated; it seemed that he, too, could hit the mark sometimes.

“I do not know if Ar Gimilzôr was right, perhaps he was. But Tar Palantir was definitely right, and so am I.”

“Is that why you are raising all those armies, then? Are the soldiers in Forostar watching me, after all?”

“No! No, no, no.” Pharazôn seemed genuinely appalled at this interpretation. “Even if I was thinking of watching someone, you would be the last person I would be wasting an army on.”

“And why is that?”

The King drank the entire glass in one go.

“Because you are the only one I can trust.”

At this, Amandil was about to drop his drink. He tried to scrutinize Pharazôn for signs of deceit, but the man who used to be his friend had grown too good at this.

“I am the only one who opposes you.”

“Of course! Were you not listening? They are all hiding their true feelings because they fear me. Only you do not hide them, you speak your thoughts to my face, and that is why I know that I can trust you. When I looked at all of their countenances this afternoon, the only glimmer of truth I could find in the whole Chamber was your desire to punch me until I bled.”

So, he had been able to see that.

“Also, Amandil, that you cannot tell a King to his face that he owes you his life does not mean that he does not remember it.”

At this, he had to do a great effort not to choke. Damn that manipulative bastard.

“If you trust me as much as you claim, then prove it. Stop taking me for a fool”, he said, regaining his poise as quickly as he could. “What is the real reason for all these unpopular measures? I am still waiting for an answer.”

Pharazôn withstood his glance.

“That was the second reason why I came. I want you to know what I am planning, and to seek your help with it.” He tipped the cup into his mouth, then cursed when he remembered that it had been emptied already.  “I am going to attack Mordor.”

If Amandil had not been sitting at this moment, his legs might have given way.

“What?”

“You were right back then, in the Council chamber. Sauron was recently defeated. His forces have suffered a great setback, and he is at his weakest now, but it never takes him too long to recover. Twice I have stood near the Black Gates of Mordor after I brought the Enemy to his knees, and twice I have been prevented from destroying him utterly. Now, I am King, and there is no one left who may hinder me. If the Lord of Battles is with me, I will rid Middle-Earth of that demon’s pestilence forever, and go down in history as the greatest among the Kings of Men.”

The lord of Andúnië had been able to keep his composure during the rest of the conversation, but now his resolve was sorely tried.

“But, Pharazôn… I mean, my lord prince… King” He was aware that he was babbling. “The Dark Lord Sauron is not like us. He is an immortal. He has powers that we cannot even imagine, and he cannot be killed.”

“I know what immortal means”, Pharazôn shrugged. His eyes seemed to be lighted by an almost manic glow, which Amandil knew very well from their youth. It was how he used to look before he did something stupid -something which often managed to end relatively well, in spite of the odds, but stupid nonetheless. And no force in Earth or Heaven could ever dissuade him from it. “Still, most of his army is mortal, as you know from your own experience. As for those who are not, I have already faced one of them, even before I knew what it was, and the second time he was the one who fled from me. But, do not worry. I will no longer have to ride into battle unprepared, if you help me.”

“I? How? I may have taught you your first moves, but I am not that good.”

“The Elves. Your father lived with them for a long time, and you have had dealings with them. They are also of his immortal breed, and I know that they have fought him in the past and gathered information about his strengths and weaknesses, as well as about the nature of his servants.”

Pharazôn said this matter-of-factly, as if he was not even conscious of the fact that he was accusing Amandil’s family of treasonous dealings. But of course, it was the King who decided what was treason and what was not. Unless…

“I am sorry. I have had no further dealings with the Elves since my father returned from his appointment in the Lindon court.” He frowned. “And if I did not know better, I would almost believe that you are seeking to entrap me into admitting to treason.”

Pharazôn just waved this away as he would an annoying fly.

“There is no need to admit to anything. All you need to do is summon your father from Andúnië. Once that he is here, I will meet with him, and he will tell me everything that you know about our enemy.”

“My father is in retirement. He gave up the lordship of Andúnië long ago, and he does not wish to have anything to do with any wars or political intrigues.” When he heard of this, even Númendil would lose his unshakeable composure, he thought, his protective instincts rebelling at the very idea.

“If your father had wanted to stay away from those things, he should have stayed in Lindon instead of returning to Númenor. Please, summon him, or I will.”

He had to try a different tack.

“And why are you so sure that you can trust the Elves? They are not welcome in the Island. In the Temple scrolls, they are referred to as the First Creation, whom the gods punished because of their wickedness.”

“As I believe I said to your son once, I do not care. I have made alliances with all kinds of wretched beings, as long as they served my purpose. This will not even be an alliance: your father will merely tell me what he learned from them. As he was their friend and ally, I imagine they must have entrusted him with many of their secrets, secrets which they would have denied me. Now, it is his duty to reveal them to me, so I can lead the armies of Númenor to victory.”

“This is madness!”, he spat at last, despairing of any attempt to convince Pharazôn with reasonable arguments. “You have grown too confident because of your victories, but this is not something you can just decide on a whim. The lives of many people, perhaps the kingdom of Númenor itself, may be at stake as they never have been before. Are you ready to assume this risk?”

Pharazôn got to his feet, and stood before Amandil in all his height. Behind him, the moon was rising in the sky, lending a strange, phantasmagorical air to his features.

“I am doing nothing on a whim. The preparations have been underway for some time, and they will still take years. I have many spies in the mainland, among the Arnians and the Haradrim. Some have even infiltrated Mordor as we speak. I will have the information from the Elves, and I can assure you that I will proceed cautiously and only under reasonable hopes for victory. You have to believe me.” His gaze hardened. “And even if you do not, you have to help me, because with any morsel of information that you deny me, you will be helping the Enemy and putting Númenor at risk!”

There it was, again. Pharazôn and his policy of consummated facts. His favoured strategy of taking the initiative and forcing others to react to it had been successful in the past, as Amandil himself could bear witness. But would that work with someone as ancient and cunning as Sauron?

He has been defeated in the past. He is far from invincible, a small, hopeful voice whispered in his head.

But never in his own stronghold, the grimmer voice of reason replied. No army had ever done this, not even the Elves.

Still, he is at his weakest now. Perhaps he could be subdued somehow.

What if this was all part of a trap, to lure the Númenóreans to their annihilation?

If Mordor was gone, he mused wistfully, Arne could be the fairest country on Middle-Earth. The shadow of barbarism would depart the Bay forever. Even the Haradrim would have less reason to fight each other. Perhaps there could even be peace, and with it, a return to the ways of the Númenóreans of old. Would that not be ironic, if what Palantir had tried to do was, in fact, destined to be achieved by his successor?

Pharazôn, however, is not a man of peace. If he has no enemy to fight, he will soon find one.

Perceiving his turmoil, the King made a vague gesture towards the door.

“I will leave you to do your thinking. I am aware that this is too much to assimilate in such a short time. Once that you do, however, I am certain you will realize that this is the most glorious and beneficial deed we could ever achieve for Númenor and the whole of Middle-Earth. And I know I am destined to do this, Amandil! Remember when we used to practice swordsmanship as children? Do you remember what I used to tell you?”

“You said that you would be King and defeat the Dark Lord” Amandil remembered. How could he have forgotten? “Your mother had prophesized it.”

“Not only my mother. Amandil, the Queen sees much farther than her father ever did.”

“And she has foreseen this?”

“She has.”

The lord of Andúnië pondered this new information, feeling his turmoil grow anew. All of a sudden, he was almost selfishly glad that the King had given him an excuse to summon his father, because there was nothing he needed more, deep inside, than to speak to Númendil now.

“Think about it. “Pharazôn was walking towards the inner study, where his voice sounded thinner in the cluttered space. “You will see that I am right.”

“And if you are not, this will not hinder you”, he muttered, more to himself than to the departing figure of his childhood friend, who was no longer able to hear his words.