Marta's Mathoms - BMEM 2011 by Marta

Things Unseen (Elendil + Pharazon) (General)

Elendil hurried up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. For once the long legs he'd grown this last year seemed to be working to his advantage. "Hurry up," Pharazôn called from overhead, leaning over the railing a half-flight above him. "I hear the bugles! The procession will begin soon."

Chuckling to himself, Elendil bounded up the final flight. It had been years since Elendil had seen his kinsman so enthusiastic about anything; usually Pharazôn was too sullen and removed to let his feelings show this plainly. But Elendil guessed that if <i>his</i> uncle had just returned from adventuring in Middle-earth with jewels and slaves and all manner of wild beasts for the king's menagerie, well, he would have been bubbling with excitement, too.

At last he reached the final landing and strode across it after Pharazôn, but he paused at the entryway. A white tree was painted onto the doorway, with seven silver stars fashioned all around it. Much of the paint had worn away but the device carved into the wood was unmistakable: 'twas Tar-Palantír's, and it marked this chamber out of bounds to all but the King's personal household.

"Are you certain we're allowed here?" Elendil asked.

Poking his head back through the doorway, Pharazôn beckoned at Elendil impatiently. "Coward," he said. "But don't worry; Father got us leave, just for today," Pharazôn said. "This way we'll have a better view of the procession than if we were down on the street." Grasping Elendil's hand, Pharazôn pulled him over the threshold and into the chamber beyond.

Pharazôn hurried over toward the balcony on the far side of the chamber, but Elendil found himself mesmerized by the room. When Pharazôn had spoken of an aviary, he had imagined a noisy room full of squawking carrier-pigeons and other birds that the king used as messengers. This room, though, was different. Quiet and near empty, any straw matting on the floor had long since been swept away. The rafters and other supports designed to give the birds a resting place were sturdier than he would have imagined, placed further apart.

Could this be...? Elendil pulled a cord, retracting the roof so that the sun shone through great gaping holes. These were larger than the windows he had often seen in aviaries, openings designed so the birds could fly away on their errands. In his mind's eye Elendil saw one of the great eagles that Manwë had sent once upon a time, wheeling around so its massive wingspan could fit through the gap and into the aviary. How huge must they have been, to fly all the way to Númenor from across the sea?

"Pharazôn, come see!" Elendil cried excitedly. "Is this what I think it is?"

Pharazôn came back in from the balcony and looked first at Elendil's animated face, and then up to the ceiling he had opened up. "What?" he asked impatiently.

"The Eagles," Elendil said. "I think this is where they rested, when they still came to Númenor."

"What?" Pharazôn asked, truly baffled.

"The King's Eagles!" Elendil said. "Think how massive they must have been, to fly all that way."

Pharazôn rolled his eyes. "Don't say you still believe those outlandish elf-stories," he said irritably. "You're keeping me from watching the procession for this?" Pharazôn sighed exasperatedly. "You say there were once great birds all over Númenor. Eagles. Fine; that I'll grant you. But the eyes and ears of a great snoop listening in on everything we say! Why believe in your Manwë at all?"

"You shouldn't say such things," Elendil said, suddenly more serious.

Pharazôn waved his hand dismissively. "Your precious Valar seem just the sort of tale a parent might use to scare a misbehaving child. Beautiful maidens who sing trees into being and hang the stars in the sky. Warriors who make the whole world shake when they stamp around in their battles. The perfect scapegoat for shipwrecked mariners and failed crops. Tell me you don't really believe in such things!"

Elendil pursed his lips together and looked around nervously. This room struck him as a hallowed place, but it was also abandoned save the two of them, and Elendil guessed it was safer to speak here than most other places. "You really should watch your tongue, Pharazôn. Your father too. King's brother or no, Father has noticed how your family rarely comes to Meneltarma at the holy days. My father will not press yours on such matters, but he cannot speak for all the king's councilors. Would you have your father accused of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of the state, because of your own careless words? Men have been called traitors for less."

"That's just it," Pharazôn argued back. "I don't see cause to believe in <i>any</i> god; why should we pay homage to something we have little enough evidence even exists? Because it is prudent? Is that the worship your Valar would demand of me?" Elendil frowned at him but could not find any words to say. Pharazôn sighed in exasperation. "I might as well bow down to the Great Spider, like the Easterlings do. <i>They</i> at least can tell a myth from history."

He took a step back toward the balcony but then turned around again on the balls of his feet, offering Elendil a half-smile. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, cousin," he said. "It just gets a bit old, always having to say the right words so no one will think the less of you. If you would know the truth, sometimes the stories my cousins bring back from Middle-earth make more sense than the ones our own people tell. I wish I could just choose what beliefs seem most true to me."

Elendil smiled sympathetically and clapped Pharazôn on the shoulder. "Few men can claim such a right, be they Elf-friend or no." Pharazôn embraced Elendil, and the two of them walked back onto the balcony, eager to see what they'd missed.

Still, Elendil thought he should not let the matter drop, for mere speech was often not enough when you lived your life in the shadow of the king. He feared what might happen in a year or two, when Pharazôn joined his cousins on their journeys to Middle-earth. Would he come back believing foreign heresies? Armenelos could be a powder-keg at times, it sometimes seemed, and a stray word might set things off. To say nothing of the importance of belief for belief's sake; there was myth, and then there was truth, and Pharazôn seemed too disposed to change one for the other.

Yet there would be time enough for that tomorrow. Leaning over the railing, Elendil marveled at the mûmakil wending their way around the square below.

Chapter End Notes

There are hints in the Akallabêth that Pharazôn was not always estranged from the Faithful. Tar-Palantír, the king when Pharazôn was young, "gave peace for a while to the Faithful; and he went once more at due seasons to the Hallow of Eru." What's more, Pharazôn seemed to have a soft spot for Elendil's father: "In the days of their youth together Amandil had been dear to Pharazôn, and though he was of the Elf-friends he remained in his council until the coming of Sauron." Amandil and Pharazôn are actually a generation apart, but Elendil and Pharazôn were born within a year or two of each other.

While they are genealogically quite distant kin, I have described them as cousins. Given the king's attitude toward the Faithful and Pharazôn's fondness toward Amandil, I can easily see the two of them palling around together, even thinking of each other as cousins after a while. Here I am using "cousin" in a sort of generalized closeness + kin-relation sense, rather than the son-of-my-mum's-brother sense.

There is of course another side to Pharazôn's story. While Pharazôn seems pretty impressed with Amandil, his father Gimilkhâd is so not one of the Elf-friends. He was Tar-Palantír's younger brother and Tolkien says that he took after their father, "the greatest enemy of the Faithful." Of Gimilkhâd Tolkien writes that "he took the leadership of those that had been called the King's Men and opposed the will of his brother as openly as he dared, and yet more in secret." It's debatable whether this went so far as open war, but even if it didn't, I think it would make for a rather conflicted childhood for young Pharazôn. Ultimately Gimilkhâd seems to have won the battle for his son's character, for by Gimilkhâd's death Pharazôn "had become a man yet more restless and eager for wealth and power than his father." I like imagining, though, that Pharazôn had more in common with Elendil in his youth.