The Thousand Stories by herenortherenearnorfar

Makada Writes About the Golden Man Of The Sea

1711 SA. Sorry Numenor, I love you, it just so happens that you're a horror story for unsuspecting humans, especially when there's some cultural mistrust on top of that.

My sister, 

I write to let you know, 

All is well here and if luck is on our side all will still be well when this message reaches you. I send it with my messenger Mane, treat him well. 

The king is growing strong and canny and soon will be a proud young man. He has spoken some of learning music. Do you still know any respectable musicians in the city? A recommendation of a trustworthy teacher would be appreciated. 

There has been something of a hubbub of late. A mighty ship beset by storms came into our port. It was not the floodmen themselves, but some close allies of theirs. We’ve had quite a time playing host, though their repairs should be finished by the time this reaches you.

Among other, more interesting news, which I have sent in the formal message to the god, they did tell some new stories. Since I know you have a love of song, I have written down my recollection of one of them. Apologies if it seems unpolished, you know my memory is not keen. 

It deals with the fate of a golden man, who was loved by the god of the sea (who you know our countrymen once loved before we were shown a higher truth). He wanted nothing more than to sail forever, but the sea god knew this would bring his death, for this was well before the days of boats that could safely traverse the ocean. So to tie him to the shore, the sea god gave him a bold husband who loved nothing more than earth and tree, and wife from a royal family whose footsteps fell like silver. And the golden man was happy with them for a while. 

The man still felt the call of the sea though, that endless pull that would not stop. And one day as he grew old he slipped out of bed from between his lovers and stood on the beach. Then there’s this chant where you say first that he only wanted to look at the ocean, then that he only wanted to stand in the shallow waves, then that he only wanted to feel the cool water against his creaking knees. And it goes on for a while until the man is standing neck deep in the ocean. His husband and wife standing on the beach desperately call out to him, and as he turns to look back at them the strong tide sweeps him away. 

I thought it was going to be a sad story, you know? That he would die and his spouses would be left without him. But the sailors made it quite clear that he survives. The sea god saves him, though he cannot return him to land, and he is swept away to the kingdom at the ocean’s heart. When his husband and wife dive down to rescue him, they find him happy and safe, finally in the ocean where he has always wanted to be, so they join him. For their loyalty the sea god makes their son the first sailor.

I am not sure its the right ending. It is the sort of thing you like, though. 

Please deliver my message with alacrity, and do write back sometime. If you love your royal sister, you will act thus. 

Cytise scanned the letter twice after the first reading, searching for any hidden meaning in the words. Of course there wouldn’t be, Makada wasn’t the sort for subterfuge. She had been chosen for her gentleness and piety as well as her beauty. Likely none of the choosing had intended her be left the sole adult member of the royal clan after rebellion and plague did their work, but she’d stepped up to the task admirably, managing to rebuild the country and even maintain some vestiges of independence for the monarchy. She’d just never developed an instinct for deception. Maybe that was for the best, they’d probably have never let her get so far with so little oversight if she had the head of a politician on her shoulders. 

Even if she wasn’t the sort of person who snuck in secret messages. that didn’t mean the words were pointless. The story had no doubt been intended as a mindless gift, like the package of cotton cloth and pearls she’d sent with it. It still communicated the salient point-- that close allies of Númenor (one of the cities close to Mordor, which did little normal trade with her people) had visited their island, and that Makada had come away with intelligence. 

Sliding the letter between the pages of her latest book, Cytise stood and gestured to the messenger. “You can stay-- recover from your journey. I’ll take the missive the rest of the way.”

No doubt the priests who wormed their way through the city of her birth would have sent their own report, which would even now be working its way up the chain of command and into the sight of the Knowing. He’d appreciate the corroboration (or contradiction) of whatever they had written as soon as possible. Though there were official channels for messages from vassal-kings to travel through, there were also… more direct avenues. 

Cytise left her room alone and headed down the long, shadowy corridors of the tower. There were quite a few flights of stairs between her and her goal, and though she found the lifts that brought heavier goods between levels fascinating she’d never quite trusted them with her life. There were too many unfortunate breakdowns. So she climbed until her calves ached, unwilling to spend even a spare second catching her breath, until she finally reached the central nervous system of the castle’s bureaucracy. The office of the head scribe; and several dozen of his underlings. 

The door was open, revealing the buzzing life within. Though it was night, this part of the tower never truly slept. Fortune smiled on her-- Dôlbeen was in. 

It was strange that the information she thought she held had to do with the a'ëleqleqara, since she was fairly sure Dôlbeen was one of them himself. Rumor had it that he’d been working this post for more than a hundred years, and he hadn’t been a child when he’d joined. Only the floodmen and orcs, both monsters of different stripes had that longevity. 

Dôlbeen didn’t look part orc and it was rumored he was from a river town (just within the reach of the Dark Lands but still waterbound enough to see a good number of unearthly mariners), so it made sense he’d be the bastard of some sailor from Númenor. And of course their shared lord would want someone of such permanence in a high ranking post. When you were eternal it probably got very tiring to switch out your servants every few decades. 

Undeniably he was loyal, so close to the eye of smoke and fire he couldn’t have been anything but devoted, so Cytise truly tried not to hold his likely heritage against him. 

It was difficult. They were so insidious, the floodmen, or as they were more accurately called in her own language, the inundation. Water was so rarely thought of as a threat, and water was what all people needed to live, but them, they wiped the world away and remade it like themselves, muddy and pale. Every coastal city north of Cytise’s own now had ties to them in one way or another, and every city was paying for it. They became haughty, hungry, full of new people who did not die at the right time and did not understand those who did.

Even Dôlbeen didn’t know how to put his head down and rest. He'd already been decrepit and his eyesight had declined sharply over the last few years, yet he still remained at his post, assisted now by lesser scribes who guided his hands and read what he could not see. Cytise wondered sometimes if he would stay until he was just bones. 

“I have a message,” she said, stepping inside and to the side as two young people bustled out and off to some errand, “From the Queen of the Maiy. Based on her communication with me, it seemed urgent enough to require immediate attention.”

Dôlbeen didn’t look up. “Ah, yes. Mahnás. Bring it here.” 

His assistant took the carefully bound parchment scroll and rolled it out on the table. Cytise did not crane her head to look, but did cast a quick eye over the letter. It wasn’t in her sister’s own, wavering hand or the rounded script of their home. Instead she’d gotten another to write it in the sharp letters of the trolls who wandered the most inhospitable lands at night and carved their words into ancient stone. Upside down and in a foreign lettering, Cytise could only make out a few phrases, including “plans” “settlers” and, most soothingly, “a long time”. Yes, the current queen on that wretched island was something of an isolationist, wasn't she? Cytise could at least respect one who knew how to mind their own business. Her heir though, he had different intentions. There had long been whispers that he wished to expand. The soft muttering of the underscribe in her teacher’s ear confirmed that those suspicions had just found another confirmation. 

But Númenoreans lived for such a very long time. 

The conquest of Cytise’s home and the countries surrounding it had happened so quickly in the scheme of things. A few hundred years and half the continent was under the control of the watchful. Well, they hadn’t been able to put up much of a fight. Númenor would, and its people, those implacable watery-eyed sea farers, they functioned on a timeline much more similar to her lord's than hers. 

It could take a very long time, she thought with some relief, this game of maneuvering they now seemed locked into. Little moves taken against allied city states with friends too powerful to directly attack, careful misdirection and diplomacy, building forces and bring the places that were already loyal in line. They were making good work on the formless north in the meantime, pulling Rhun slowly under proper control, but Númenor would take years to destroy. 

That was almost reassuring. It meant there was less of a chance of war in her nephew’s lifetime, or in the life of his children. 

It was nothing to write home about. Makada didn’t want her optimistic babbling. After Dôlbeen dismissed her and she was out of his horrible, clouded over grey sight, she started to draft a story. Something light, to keep her sister’s mind at ease.